


Grouptale (Undertale AU)

by Kjfan2006



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grouptale (Undertale), Gen, Undertale Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23154625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kjfan2006/pseuds/Kjfan2006
Summary: "I don't think you know just how special the world you live in is, Frisk. For all seven of you to be together in the underground, you might just find an ending better than any other happily ever after I've heard,"***********************Sophie, Ethan, Angela, Ryan, Hannah, Chase and Frisk found themselves hiking up Mount Ebott out of curiosity. But when all seven of them end up falling down to a monster-filled underground, it's up to them to find a way out alive and in one piece.This story is an Undertale AU where the previous six fallen humans are alive and fall into the underground with Frisk
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	1. Prologue

A really long time ago, a village was built on the foot of Mount Ebott. The mountain was said to hold monsters deep underneath it's caverns. The villagers ignored the warnings of many others, continuing to live their lives right beside the dangerous mountain.

That is, until a child disappeared just a few decades ago.

The mountain wasn't fenced off, the village didn't bothered to. The child slipped off into the woods unnoticed and they were only reported missing the next day, when friends and family realized they didn't come home. They were never found.

Afterwards, the village took precautions. The mountain was fenced off, rumours were spread, stories were told. Every child who lived in Ebott Village knew the legend. _"Don't go to Mount Ebott,"_ their parents would say. _"Monsters will find you, and eat you up!"_

The children did as they were told, no one else dared to climb over the fences towards the cursed mountain.

Many years passed after that, Ebott Village grew into a small town, though the name still stuck. The people who lived there slowly but surely stopped believing that there were monsters under the mountain. Perhaps the child who disappeared simply got lost? Maybe the "monsters" the old people said killed the child were simply just a particularly fierce wild boar.

Alright, enough of the backstory, let's get to where the real story begins.

The town had an orphanage standing near town square, housing about 20 children. It was nighttime, the stars twinkling in the sky. A woman with auburn hair had just took a great effort to get the younger children to go to sleep. Taking a deep sigh of relief after shutting the door, she walked up the stairs to check on the older children.

She didn't need to open the door to know the kids were still awake. She could hear two of them arguing through the door.

"Ethan, Angela, stop bickering and go to sleep, please? You all have school tomorrow and everyone else needs to sleep." The woman opened the door to see all six children were, thankfully, on their beds with the lights out. However, two of them were sitting up on their beds and looking like they were about to start the third fistfight of the week.

"But it's like 9pm!" Ethan, the boy with pale red hair sitting up in bed bickering complained. "We can't sleep!"

"Don't change the subject!" Angela, the girl arguing with Ethan spat. "I am not gonna-"

"One more word from any one of you, and I _will_ personally come over and snap both your necks." The oldest boy in the group, a boy with golden blonde hair grumbled as he buried himself in his covers.

"Chase," the woman spoke in a stern tone. "Don't be rude."

"They've been arguing for ages!" Chase complained. "Angela saying all the stuff about how Ethan is stupid while he keeps on talking about the stupid-"

"Will the gods, just for one day, let me have a good night's sleep?" Another boy groaned face first in his pillow. "Please, save the arguing for tomorrow morning and spare my life."

"Ryan's right," A girl with red hair piped in. "I'm sleepy, and they won't shut up!"

"See guys?" The woman, who had obviously went through all of this ruckus with this group of children before, sighed. "Ryan and Hannah are tired, and I bet Sophie is too. You all have school tomorrow, it's time to sleep."

"But I'm not tired!" Sophie, a girl with pale blonde hair sleeping at the far side of the room objected. "Ethan was talking about monsters and-"

"Alright alright, case closed, go the heck to sleep." Chase ordered as he buried himself even deeper into his covers. The rest of the kids grumbled and tucked themselves back to bed properly.

"Goodnight, guys." The woman sighed, relieved they finally stopped arguing.

"Goodnight, Miss Mary." The children replied from their beds.

The door shut, followed by the sound of footsteps and another door shutting. The room was silent for a good amount of time before Ethan cleared his throat.

"So, are we still going to the mountain?"

"No," Angela rolled her eyes in the dark. "There are no monsters under the stupid mountain, and going there is gonna be a waste of time."

"It wouldn't hurt to go though," Ryan commented.

Angela shot him a look. But in the dark room and the fact Ryan wasn't wearing his glasses then, she doubted he could see her glare. "Don't encourage him." She warned.

"But it sounds fun!" Sophie said, eager to follow Ethan up the mountain.

"That's true," Hannah rubbed her green eyes gently. "I don't have anything else to do after cookery club later, why not? But can we please discuss this in the morning?"

Ethan grinned. "See? Everyone wants to go, Miss Angelina Ballerina. Come on, it'll be fun!"

"Stop calling me that!" Angela hissed. "And Chase didn't even say he wanted to go!"

"I will if I get to leave Ethan stranded on the stupid mountain tomorrow." Chase said between gritting his teeth. "Go to sleep!"

Ethan stuck his tongue out in victory. " _Now_ we have everybody on board this trip. It's not even like Miss Angelina Ballerina has dancing class tomorrow!"

"My _name_ is Angela Amaya Hyde, and I do, in fact, have dancing class tomorrow!"

"Come on Angela! It'll be fun! _Please_...." Sophie begged with her puppy eyes. The older girl groaned in frustration.

"Alright alright, I'll..."

Before Angela could finish, she was interrupted by the sound of a door opening down the hallway, followed by some footsteps.

"Guys! Didn't I say to go to sleep?" Miss Mary's voice came through the door.

"Sorry Miss Mary!" The group answered in unison, followed by a chorus of "goodnight"s.

"Goodnight kids," Miss Mary said, before there were more footsteps, and the sound of a door closing.

And so, the group went to bed for real.


	2. Once Upon a Time

Ethan groaned as he marched back and forth at town square, waiting for everyone the get out of school. He, Chase and Angela's school, Ebott Secondary, was only a short walk from the orphanage, right at town square. So was Sophie, Ryan and Hannah's school, Ebott Primary, which stood right beside his school.

He knew Sophie, Ryan and Hannah would be let out of school later in the day, and Angela was in her ballet class which meant she would be out later as well. But Chase didn't have any class or clubs after school, which meant he should've been meeting up at town square like the group agreed in the morning the same time as Ethan.

Instead, it took a whole 10 minutes of waiting before Ethan could see Chase walking out of the school gates. He plopped his bag beside Ethan's, which was sitting near the fountain in the center of town square.

"What took you so long?" Ethan grumbled. "You have like nothing else to do after class!"

"I thought you'd be near the dance room, so I thought I'd check." Chase shrugged.

"Why would I be at the dance room?!"

Chase raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you used to wait for Angela to finish dance class before going?"

" _No_ I don't!" Ethan placed his hand on his chest like he was insulted. "That was like three or four years ago! You weren't even there!"

"Sophie told me once." Chase smirked.

"Why the heck would she tell you that?!"

After a bit more yelling, the two of them continued waiting at the fountain for everyone to come. While Chase fished a book out of his bag and started reading, Ethan took the opportunity to examine the fountain.

The fountain was built in the middle of a large circle of golden flowers. Ethan never learned the name of them, but they sure were pretty. The fountain itself was pretty cool as well. It was a little girl, or was it a boy? Ethan couldn't decide. They were cupping their hands together with their head looking down at them. Water gathered in the cupped hands before streaming down to the pool below.

Every time Ethan walked pass the fountain, he always felt the need to laugh a bit. The kid on the fountain look oddly similar to one of the younger kids he knew back in the orphanage. Maybe they're related or something.

They waited a bit more longer, until Ethan started to get bored.

"Why don't we go and grab some stuff from our room before coming back to wait?" Ethan suggested.

"The second any one of the caretakers see us back, they'll tell us to help out with chores or something, and we'll never get to the mountain today." Chase replied, not bothering to look up from his book.

"Just be careful then, they're probably preparing dinner now. We'll just sneak back in our room, grab our stuff as quickly as possible, then sneak back out."

"Fine, the other kids should be having their afternoon nap. It won't be that hard to sneak in and out."

The two managed to sneak in the house, making as little noise as they possibly can, ran pass the caretakers, and back into their room. Their room had two closets, one pink and the other blue. (much to their dismay, none of them were a fan of baby colours)

Ethan and Chase emptied their backpacks of homework and neatly arranged them on the table, then opened the closet and grabbed whatever they believed was important. Ethan grabbed his pink though gloves (he regretted not specifying the colour) and tied his orange bandana on his neck while Chase pulled out his cowboy hat and a revolver, much to Ethan's surprise.

"Woah! When did you have that thing here?! If anyone finds out, you're screwed!" Ethan had almost forgot that they were sneaking in, and Chase had to cover his mouth.

"Dunno, I just found it lying on the ground some day. It's empty though, but I think it'd be cool to bring it around today."

"Anyways, do you wanna help the others grab their stuff? I doubt we'll have luck to come back in later without anyone finding us."

"Eh, fine by me."

Ryan's side of the closest didn't offer anything useful to bring along. He's a total nerd, and has his notebook by his side all the time. The two decided he didn't have anything else to bring and moved on the get the stuff for the girls.

"Wait, are we seriously gonna open the girl's closet?" Chase made a face that was closest to mortified.

"They don't have anything much, so I wouldn't bother. Heck, Hannah has her frying pan with her. If we meet anything up there she can just whack them silly."

"As if she would dare to do that at the first place." Chase rolled his eyes.

"Oh believe me, she can and will do it again." Ethan simply replied.

"Again?"

"Before you came here, I tried to hide in the girls closet to scare the girls. Who knew Hannah has amazing arm strength and Angela has thunder thighs?" Ethan admitted, shuddering at the memory.

"Eh, I don't think there's anything else here, we can go now." Chase looked around the room before he got up.

"Wait, let me grab something first." Ethan said as he got up. Walking towards Sophie's bed, he pulled out a toy knife from under her pillow.

"Why on earth is Sophie's toy knife under her pillow?" Chase asked, rasing an eyebrow.

"Remember that horror movie we watched last week?" Ethan asked. "It scared the living lights outta her. So her idea is that if the monster sneaks up on her while sleeping she can stab it."

"Yikes, who thought that giving her that thing was a good idea?" Chase shuddered. It was obvious no one in the entire town was delighted of her disturbing toy she brings everywhere with. In fact, the only reason it's in their room right now was the teachers banned her from bringing it to school.

"You don't say." Ethan handed the toy to Chase. "Hold it won't ya? This thing is disturbing. Never show her horror movies ever again."

"And it was your idea to watch it eh? Any regrets now?" Chase joked as he took the toy knife and placed it in his pocket.

"Whatever."

The boys sneaked back out with a handful of equipment, and headed back to the fountain, where everyone else was waiting at.

"Look who's late." Angela crossed her arms upon their arrival.

"We grabbed some stuff before going." Ethan replied with a smirk, which more or less ticked Angela off a bit more.

"We got your toy too, Sophie." Chase said as he handed the toy back to her. "In case we get attacked or something."

"We should get going now. Or the caretakers will find out." He added to the group, before they all turned to walk towards the mountain.

"Where are you guys going?" A voice asked from behind the group.

The group turned around in alarm, meeting a child around the age of 8, with short brown hair, small eyes, holding a stick in one hand and wearing a blue and pink striped shirt.

"Where are you guys going?" They repeat the question.

"What are you doing here Frisk? You're supposed to be home!" Angela asked the child, whose name was apparently Frisk.

Frisk smirked. "Are you guys going to the mountain?"

"That's none of your business! Go home!" Ethan yelled.

"Ok, I'll go home. But I'll tell Miss Mary you guys are going to the mountain." Frisk gave an evil smile. They were a weird kid. Frisk was in the group of younger children, and was a bit introverted. Sure, they do have their own friends, but they just preferred to do whatever stuff by themselves.

"Wait, no! Don't you dare do that, we'll all be done for!" Chase panicked, almost ready to grab the troublemaking kid and lock them in a room, if he could.

"I won't tell if you bring me along." Frisk requested, still holding their cheeky smirk.

The group paused for a moment.

"Fine, we'll bring you along. But when we come back, don't tell this to anyone." Hannah gave them a warning glare for a moment, before melting back into her usual kind expression.

"Yay! Let's go!" Frisk cheered in delight before joining the group in the direction they were going.

"By the way," Sophie asked after reaching the woods to Mount Ebott. "Why are there even monsters under the mountain?"

"Well, they say that long ago, humans and monsters lived on Earth together. Then war broke out, and humans won. The humans then sealed the monsters underground with a magic barrier." Ryan recalled from a book he read as the group sneaked in the woods unnoticed.

"A magic barrier? That's so silly." Hannah commented.

"Why do you think I believe it's a silly child's story?"

"Why was there even war anyway, what were they afraid of? Or what do they want?" Angela questioned.

"How would I know? I'm neither a monster nor a human from centuries ago."

"Oh yeah. Ryan, tell them about the monster story too." Ethan, who was at the front leading the way, turned around to join in the conversation.

"Ethan, if we compared the 'monster under the mountain' theory on a scale of one to ten of how true can it be, it's probably a two. That story you're thinking of? Probably in the negatives." Ryan replied while being careful to not trip over a large branch on the ground.

"Ha ha, very funny."

"Hey, don't leave us hanging like that! What story are you guys saying?" Hannah asked.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Oh boy. I'll let Ethan take this turn. This story is just as absurd as bigfoot."

"Well," Ethan looked behind him to make sure everyone was still together, before continuing. "You know that kid they said disappeared into the mountain a bunch of years ago? They said something huge like a monster killed them and brought their body back to the village."

"And this is why I said it's unbelievable." Ryan muttered under his breath. "And where's the body then?"

"How will I know? They said the old folks in our village attacked the monster with all they got and it ran back to the mountain with the body."

"Again, that's why I said it's absurd."

"You don't know!"

"Huh," Chase thought. "Wonder what that monster would've looked like."

"Next thing you'll know, it's gonna look like some oversized walking billy goat that wears a purple dress." Angela joked, prompting a snort of laughter from Sophie and Hannah.

They continued hiking. After some time, a cave appeared in a distance.

"A cave! That must be where the monsters are!" Ethan sprinted forward, leaving the group behind.

"This boy." Angela sighed. "Slow down! Don't leave us behind!" The group picked up their pace and ran after Ethan.

When everyone reached the entrance of the cave, it was Frisk's turn to run. Sprinting into the cave without any hesitation and leaving the rest of the group to run after them after barely catching a break.

"Frisk! Hold up! Why are there so many people excited about monsters that don't even exist?!" Angela yelled in frustration.

The group came into a grinding halt after Frisk. In front of them was a huge sinkhole. On top of the hole was a smaller hole on the ceiling of the cave which light shone through, but not enough to fully illuminate the bottom of the hole.

"Woah. That's a huge hole." Angela commented.

Ethan grinned. "I told you! Monsters can be down that hole!"

"First of all, you sound like a 5 year old. Second, I am almost a hundred percent sure that this is just some random sinkhole." Chase sighed.

Frisk took another step forward for a closer look. Without warning, they trip on a vine on the ground.

"Frisk!" Hannah shrieked and leaped forward, grabbing Frisk's hand. She wasn't strong enough, and the weight of Frisk was pulling the two of them down.

"Hold on!" Both Sophie and Chase tried to grab Hannah, but the two slip, knocking the four of them down the hole.

"Guys!" Ryan tried to find a way to climb down the hole using the vines, but he tripped on another one of them and fell too.

Ethan ran towards the hole with no hesitation, prepared to jump. But before he could, Angela grabbed him by the arm and held him back. "Wait!" She yelled. "We can't come back if we go down!"

"Well, I'm not planning to stay up here until I get them back. Are you going?" Ethan shot a look at Angela.

"I..."

"We're a team right? And I'm not leaving anyone behind. If you want to, run down and call Miss Mary and the others, but I'm going down." Angela's grip on Ethan loosened, and he pried her hands off his arm. He turned to give her a last look before leaping down the hole.

"Ethan, wait! Is everyone in this group an idiot?!" Angela looked around in panic, about to turn around and call for help.

"If they're hurt down there, it'll be too late to call for help..." Angela muttered to herself, before sighing and turning back to face the hole.

 _"Oh well, if they're gonna be down there, I might as well stick with them. I'm not leaving my group behind."_ She thought to herself, before taking a deep breath, and then she jumped down the hole along with everyone else.

And with that, everyone, our tale begins now.


	3. Your Best Friend

Frisk and Hannah hit the ground first, their fall soften by a bed of golden flowers. They haven't had anytime to react before Sophie fell right on top of them screaming. Chase on the other hand, missed the flower bed completely and landed face first on the hard ground. Well, at least the grass soften the fall a bit.

Ryan came down next, falling on top of the pile. Thankfully his glasses weren't shattered in the landing. Hannah and Frisk tried to get out of the way before either Angela or Ethan fell, but Sophie and Ryan were pinning them down and were too dazed to get up themselves.

Down came Ethan, landing perfectly on top of Ryan (much to his dismay) and looking around to make sure everyone is okay. Finally, Angela fell right on top of Ethan, who was knocked off the pile of children and on to the floor.

"Get off me! All of you! We're being crushed down here!" Hannah yelled underneath the pile. Everyone tried their best to get up after falling from such a height, legs shaking from the shock. Once everyone got on their feet, the attention was moved towards Chase, who practically flattened his face from the fall. Amazingly, he was fine. In pain, but fine.

While everyone was trying to make sense about what had just happened, Frisk went off to examine the flowerbed which soften the group's fall (expect for Chase, of course)

_"Golden flowers, they must have broken your fall."_

Frisk turns around to see a child slightly older than them, yet younger then the rest. They had a striped shirt and glowed a faint red.

"Hello, who are you?" Frisk asked the mysterious red child who was half transparent. Perhaps they were one of the monsters who lived here? The red child stared at them dumbly.

"Frisk, who are you talking to?" Hannah asked. The rest of the group turned to face Frisk.

"Them. They won't tell me their name." Frisk pointed towards the child. The rest of the children stare awkwardly at the thin air Frisk is pointing to.

"Frisk.... There's nobody there." Sophie quietly a said.

"What do you mean? Their right there! Hey, come back!" Frisk ran the opposite direction the group were at, before continuing to talk to thin air.

"Do they have an imaginary friend?" Chase asked awkwardly.

"That kid was always weird. I give up." Ethan said. "Hey kid! We're going through that door now! Hurry up!"

"Wait. Since when did we agree to go through that door?" Angela asked while staring at the large grey door at one end of the place. It had a strange symbol carved into the top.

"Well, we don't have anywhere else to go anyways." Ryan said.

"Come on Frisk! Let's go!" Hannah called Frisk again. They turned around and looked as if they were dragging an invisible someone along with them. Hannah took a look at Frisk when they reached the group before letting out a gasp. "Frisk, you hurt your face!"

"Huh?" Frisk absentmindly placed their hand on their lower-left side of their cheek before withdrawing it back in pain. There was a small cut on their face which blood was coming out of.

"Oh, it's been there for a while. I had a bandaid on it this morning. I thought it was okay without a bandaid anymore so I just peeled it off." They explained.

"It probably reopened from the landing just now. Sophie, you have some bandaids with you, right?" Hannah turned to ask Sophie.

"Yeah, here you go." Sophie turned to get a band-aid from her pocket and passed it to Hannah, who applied the bandaid onto the wound before the group walked through the door together.

The group couldn't really expect what to show up next, but it was probably anything but a single golden flower with a face on it.

The flower suddenly spoke, "Howdy!" It said, leaving half of the kids screaming and the other half questioning their sanity.

"Woah there kids, what's with all of this?" The flower interrupted their panicked screaming. "Anyways, I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!" It continued.

"Hmm..... You kids are new to the underground, aren'tcha? Golly, you guys must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here!"

"Why does that sound like a threat?" Angela whispered to the group. Everyone tenses facing Flowey.

"I guess little old me will have to do." Flowey winks. "Ready? Here we go!"

Suddenly, the room turns pitch black and coloured hearts appear in front of each of the children. Sophie has a turquoise heart, Ethan has an orange one, Angela with a blue heart, Ryan, a purple heart, Hannah with a green one, Chase with a yellow one and Frisk with a red one.

"See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!" Flowey said after the kids had shut up from freaking out. "Your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV."

"What does LV stand for? Why, LOVE, of course!" Flowey continued. "You want some LOVE, don't you? Don't worry, I'll share some with you!"

Five white spinning pellets appear behind Flowey. "Down here," Flowey said, "LOVE is shared through... little white... 'friendliness pellets.'" The children look to the white "friendliness pellets", debating on whether to trust Flowey or not.

Flowey didn't wait for them to react. "Are you ready?" He sent the pellets towards their souls. "Move around! Get as many as you can!"

At that point, everyone decided to not trust Flowey and his pellets, and dodged past them. Sophie was too slow, however, and the pellet hit her. She let out a yelp of pain and fell to the floor.

Flowey's face changes into an evil smile. "You idiot! In this world, it's kill or BE killed. Why would ANYONE pass up an opportunity like this!?"

Dozens of pellets circle the group, trapping them in the middle.

"Die."

Flowey lets out an horrific laugh as the pellets slowly move towards the group. The group pressed into each other as they see the pellets coming towards them, slowly coming closer, closer, and closer.....


	4. Fallen Down

Sparks of flames appear in a distance, and a ball of fire knocks Flowey away. The ring of bullets that were centimetres close to killing the group faded into thin air. Surprisingly, all of Sophie's wounds were healed as if nothing happened.

A figure appears, a monster which looked like an anthropomorphic white goat came out from the darkness surrounding the group. She wore a purple robe which bore the same symbol as the carving on the door earlier.

"What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth. Ah, do not be afraid, my children. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins." The kind monster spoke in a gentle tone. "I pass through this place everyday to see if anyone has fallen down. You children are the first to come here in a long time. And what a surprise too! Seven at once!"

"Come!" She continued. "I will guide you all through the catacombs."

The room returns to it's original form, a room with a patch of grass where Flowey stood earlier, with sunlight shining on it through a small hole.

"This way." Toriel said before leaving through an exit in front of them. The group huddles up to discuss the matter while Frisk goes off to apparently console their upset imaginary friend.

"Can we trust her? The last time we met someone it tried to kill us." Ethan said to the group.

"I think so, she seems very nice." Hannah replied to him.

"Looks don't say anything, Hannah." Ryan said. "Though I think we're better off with her for now."

"Then it's settled, we're going with her." Angela declared.

"And we better hurry." Chase added. "Something tells me we shouldn't stay here for too long." He turned back to look at the patch of green grass where Flowey was just a few moments ago.

The group grabs Frisk (whose friend was apparently still upset about something) and heads towards the exit Toriel left, eager to follow her to somewhere safe and away from evil flowers.

After going through a purple door with the same carving as the first one, the group appears at a room built with purple bricks and had a purple floor. The floor was covered with red leaves, though for some reason no trees were on sight.

Toriel walks up a grey staircase leading to another door. Just before the group followed her, Frisk went towards a pile of leaves and attempted to touch something that the others couldn't see.

_"The shadow of the ruins looms above, filling you with determination."_

They stared at the pile of leaves for a while before turning to follow the rest of the group.

"That kid is so weird." Ethan leans over to the group and mutters. The rest of the group agrees silently.

They all walk through the door into another purple room. This one has six grey stones on the ground, acting as buttons, a yellow lever and a grey sign on one of the walls, and a shut purple door with the same symbol Toriel has on her robe on it.

"Welcome to your new home, innocent ones." Toriel said. "Allow me to educate you children in the operation of the Ruins."

She then steps on four of the six stones, pushing them into the floor, and then pulling the lever. The door swings open with a "creak!".

"The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room." She explained. "Please adjust yourselves to the sight of them."

Toriel the walks off to the next room. Frisk wonders towards the grey sign on the wall and read it aloud.

"Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road."

"Huh, that must be the hint to the puzzle." Ryan said.

"Seems right." Angela added before the group continued to the next room.

They approach a long room with rivers crossable by bridges, vines creeping on the walls of the room and multiple switches at one side of the wall. The exit was blocked by some spikes.

"To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches." Toriel said. "Do not worry, I have labeled the ones that you children need to flip."

Toriel walked across the first bridge and waited beside the first switch for one of the kids to pull it. Before that, Frisk walked to a sign beside the path and read it aloud.

"Press [Z] to read signs!"

The group chuckled hearing that. "What is this? A video game?" Ethan laughed. While everyone was talking about the silly sign Frisk walked off the path to read a sign too far to make out on the path.

"Stay on the path." It read.

The group laughed harder.

When they finally got themselves together, they walked across the bridge and flipped the switch on the wall. It was covered with small yellow arrows pointing at it. Frisk flipped the switch and a small "click!" can be heard.

Toriel crossed another bridge and stopped in front of the exit blocked by spikes. This time there were two switches. One of them had multiple arrows pointing at it like the one before. Frisk flipped this one too. A loud "clack" can be heard and the spikes blocking the exit retracted.

Toriel was beaming. "Splendid!" She said. "I am proud of all of you, little ones."

"Let us move on to the next room." She said before leaving through the exit. Before catching up with her, Frisk went on to try the other switch without arrows pointing at it.

_"This switch doesn't even work...."_

The group shrugged it off and headed off to whatever else Toriel had in store.

The next room didn't have much. Just a training dummy standing there.

"As humans living in the Underground, monsters may attack you." Toriel said. "You will need to prepare for this situation."

"However, worry not! The process is simple." She continued. "When you encounter a monster, you'll enter a FIGHT."

"When you are in a FIGHT, strike up a friendly conversation. Stall for time, I will come to resolve the conflict."

"Practice talking to the dummy." Toriel said as she led the group to the dummy. The group stared dumbly at the dummy for a moment or two before Sophie tried to take a step closer. Suddenly, all of their souls appear and they were dragged into the black background again.

_*You encounter the dummy_

"Huh, this again?" Ryan looked around the place. Toriel was standing a distance away looking at the group. Everyone else was trying to figure out what to do.

Sophie, Ethan and Frisk looked dumbly at the other kids, who unlike them cannot move properly and are stuck in some pitiful situations. Angela's soul was stuck on the floor unlike everyone else who was floating and jumping was the only way to force it off the ground. Ryan's is stuck on treads like spider webs, and sticks onto the treads like spider webs as well, only able to move on the lines. Hannah isn't doing well either, literally frozen on the spot, only able to defend herself with her frying pan.

Chase, on the other hand, was living the life. He could move properly, and had an advantage too. Who knew a soul could send bullets flying like a gun?

This is a mess. The dummy didn't seem much for an enemy though.

The group had multiple buttons in front of them. Frisk went on to press the ACT button and check the dummy.

_"Dummy -_ _ATK_ _0_ _DEF_ _0_   
_A cotton heart and a button eye. You are the apple of my eye."_

"I swear, this place gets weirder and weirder by the second." Angela groaned. "Are we in a video game or something?"

The dummy didn't attack them. It just. Stood there. Not moving an inch.

Frisk went on and press the ACT button again, this time talking to the dummy.

...

It doesn't seem much for a conversation.

Toriel seems happy with the group, though.

_"You won! You earned 0 XP and 0 gold."_

The room fades back the it's original look, and Toriel was seen beaming at the the group.

"Ah, very good! You children are very good." She said before proceeding to the next room. The rest followed her.

"There's another puzzle in this room. I wonder if you all can solve it." Toriel stood at the centre of the room while the group examine it. It was a rather empty room, other than the fact there was a wiggly pathway on the floor that seemed to be a hint to the puzzle.

Toriel mentioned the group to follow her, and they did. However, a strange monster popped out of nowhere as they went through the hallway to the next room.

_"_ _Froggit_ _attacks you!"_

The souls of the group appear again as they were pulled into the black world again. Froggit was a small white monster that looked like a frog and had a small creature underneath it.

Frisk went on to check Froggit like earlier with the dummy.

_"_ _Froggit_ _-_ _ATK_ _4_ _DEF_ _5_   
_Life is difficult for this enemy."_

The group was bracing for an actual fight with the monster until Toriel entered the battlefield, scarring Froggit away.

" _You won! You earned 0 XP and 0 gold."_

The place fades back to place and they continue the walk. In front of them was another grey sign. This time it read "The western room is the eastern room's blueprint."

They continue walking and found themselves in a room with spikes everywhere. Toriel seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. "This is the puzzle, but..." She trailed off. "Here, take my hand for a moment."

Frisk grabbed Toriel's hand, and Sophie grabbed their hand, and then Ethan held her hand, then Angela, Ryan, Hannah and Chase all joined hands with each other, forming a line. Toriel then lead the group through the spikes.

"Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now." Toriel said when they reached the end of the spikes, and then proceeded to the next room, a long corridor.

"You all have done excellently thus far, my children." Toriel says when they reach the room. "However, I have a difficult request to ask of all of you."

"I would like you all to walk to the end of the room by yourselves. Forgive me for this." She said before turning to run off to the other side of the room, leaving the group surprised and slightly confused.

"Did she just leave us?!" Ethan exclaimed.

"Don't know, maybe she's at the end of the hall?" Ryan asked.

"Nevermind that, I feel safer with her, we should just get going." Angela suggested.

"Last one there is a loser!" Ethan yelled before taking off after Toriel. The rest of the group sighs before running after him.

Everyone came to a grinding halt at the end of the hallway. Toriel jumps out from behind a pillar.

"Greetings, children. Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. Thank you for trusting me." She said. "However, there was an important reason for this exercise. To test your independence."

"I must attend to some business, and you all must stay alone for a while. Please remain here. It's dangerous to explore by yourselves."

"I have an idea. I will give you a cell phone." Toriel said as she took out an ancient cellphone and handed it to the group. "If you children have a need for anything, just call. Be good, alright?" She said before walking away and leaving the children in the corridor.

They stood in silence for a moment.

"Well," Angela sighed. "Looks like we'll be here for a while."


	5. Ruins

"Come on guys! It's only been a few minutes! Why are you all so impatient?" Sophie cried as the rest of the group walked through the exit following where Toriel went. The group had waited there for about 5 minutes while enduring the bored sighs and groans of Ethan and Angela before deciding enough was enough.

"What do you mean only a few minutes?! This is taking forever! We should find Toriel instead!" Ethan yelled back to her.

"As much as I hate to say this, but I do agree with Ethan. If I have to sit here for another minute I will go insane." Angela lets out a defeated sigh.

"But Toriel told us to wait here! How long can she possibly leave us?!" Sophie argued.

"Probably till the end of time, although it would most likely be another 5 minutes." Ryan replied.

"Whatever, but there's no harm walking around the place right?" Hannah asked.

"I don't see any reason why not. Either way, I'm getting sick of these two whining. Let's just meet Toriel somewhere else." Chase said.

"But what if she can't find us later if we go?" Sophie cried.

"It'll be fine, we have each other, remember? We'll come back later." Hannah assured Sophie. She looked around the group and got up unwillingly.

"Fine, I'll go." Sophie grumbled.

The group walked out of the door Toriel went through, and into a room with red leaves all over the place. Just before they took another step forward, the phone Toriel gave the group rang.

"Hello? This is Toriel. You all have not left the room, have you? There are a few puzzles ahead that I have yet to explain." Toriel said from the other side of the phone. Everyone exchanged panicked looks and Chase appeared to be making up a ridiculous story in his mind as an explanation to Toriel once they meet her again.

"It would be dangerous to try and solve them yourselves. Be good, alright?" Thankfully, Toriel didn't demand an answer to the previous question and hung up. The group breathed a sigh of relief.

They continued on exploring the room. A froggit nearby the entrance greets them.

"Ribbit, ribbit." It croaked. Which translates to "Excuse me, humans. I have some advice for you all about battling monsters. If you act a certain way or fight until you almost defeat them, they might not want to fight you anymore."

"If a monster does not want to fight you, please... Use some mercy, humans."

"Okay, we will." Hannah replied to the froggit. It gives a nod to the group before hopping away.

They walk through a door nearby which leads to a small room with a small white pillar in the middle. On the pillar was a bowl with some candy in it.

"Take one" Frisk read the sign hanging on the pillar. They grabbed a piece of the candy and shoved it in their pocket.

"Hey, I want one too!" Ethan said before taking one for himself. The rest of the group took one each as well.

Before walking out, Ethan turned to grab some more candy. That is, until Hannah stopped him. "Come on Ethan, the sign said take only one."

"Well, there's no one watching right now, why not?" He replied before grabbing another piece.

_"You took more candy. How disgusting."_

Ethan turned around and looked around the place. "Huh, who was that? Did someone say something?" The rest of the group looked at him in confusion.

Frisk repeated what their new friend said. "You took more candy. How disgusting."

Ethan snorted. "What are you, a narrator of a story?"

Frisk pointed to the thin air beside them. "Not me, they are."

"Oh, whatever." He said before grabbing another piece of the candy.

_"You take another piece. You feel like the scum of the earth."_

Ethan didn't hear the red child's narrating this time, and went to get another piece. "Clang!!!" The bowl and all the candy spill onto the floor. The group stands in silence for a bit before Ethan walks out of the room, face red in embarrassment.

Frisk turns to see their friend, looking at the bowl of spilled candy, before saying _"You took to much too fast. The bowl of candy spills into the floor."_

The rest of the group walks out to join Ethan, while Angela lectures him for spilling the candy. Frisk goes on to play in the red leaves, and touch another invisible thing.

_"Playfully crinkling through the leaves fills you with determination."_

They all walk off to the next room. Part of the floor seems to be made of something that looks like a tarp, and there was two holes large enough for a person to crawl through before and after the patch of floor. Frisk tried to walk on the tarp, but they fell through the floor instead.

"Frisk!" The group yelled from above. Frisk got up and brushed off some leaves that soften their fall. "I'm okay! The leaves protected me!"

They went to explore the place they fell in, two exits were down there near the pile of leaves, one facing the group above and another one facing the opposite. They went to the one opposite the group and it lead to a ladder. They climbed up and came out from the hole opposite the group.

"Hello!" Frisk waved at the group. "You guys can come here if you go down there!" They instructed the group to jump down to the leaves and climb up using the ladder. One by one, they all made it to the other side of the room and continued on.

The next room had a row of spikes blocking the exit, a rock sitting on the floor and a stone sitting on the floor acting like a pressure plate.

The phone rang again. Chase fumbled around to answer it, and Toriel's voice came from the phone. "Hello? This is Toriel. For no reason in particular, which do you children prefer, cinnamon or butterscotch?"

"Cinnamon!" The group replied in usion.

"Oh! I see. Thank you very much." She said before hanging up.

"Thank goodness she didn't ask if we were still in that room." Angela said.

"Don't worry, I've got a story to explain that." Chase assured. It wasn't convincing.

"The last time you made a story up we got twice the punishment we were supposed to get. We're better off with Ethan making one up at the spot." She sneered. "Hey!" Ethan yells.

The phone rang again and everyone jumped. "Hello? This is Toriel. You all do not dislike butterscotch, do you? I know what your preference is, but would you children turn up your noses if you found it on your plates?   
..... Right, right, I understand. Thank you for being patient, by the way." And she hung up again.

"Talk about luck." Ethan said. The rest of the group agreed.

They went on with the puzzle. Turns out you just needed to push the rock onto the pressure plate, and the spikes will retract. There were more puzzles after that, rooms and rooms of them.

One of them was to memorise the right way to walk on the path to prevent falling through the floor. (Don't worry, there were leaves at the bottom to soften the fall like earlier.) And another one was to push the rocks again, but there were more of them this time. (Turns out 3 out of 4 rocks recommend you push them.) There were monsters who fought them too, quite a few froggits, a trio of moldsmals, which look like living Jello, and some whimsuns, which are timid and Ethan scared all of them off.

After the insanity, they arrived at a small room with a single low table and a small mousehole on one of the walls. There was a piece of cheese on the table.

_"This cheese has been here for quite a long time. It's stuck to the table...."_

Frisk went off to touch yet another one of those invisible things like they always did. The group had gotten used to it at this point.

_"Knowing the mouse might one day leave it's hole and get the cheese, it fills you with determination."_

They exited the small room and found themselves in a room that is shaped rather like an hourglass, with a bottleneck in the middle of the room. In between the bottleneck was a pile of leaves. The group would've walked through it without a thought if it wasn't because, uh, there was a white ghost was laying on top of the leaves, blocking the road.

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (are they gone yet?) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

The ghosts keeps saying "Z" out loud repeatedly, pretending to sleep. And he's blocking the way.

"Can we tell him to move?" Hannah tilted to the side and asked the group.

"Or we can just move him with force." Ethan said.

"Don't be rude!" Angela scolded Ethan. "Hannah is right, let's just ask him to.... Frisk? What are you doing? No no no, don't do that, Frisk! FRISK!!!" Angela yelled as Frisk went to give the ghost a good shove. The background faded to pitch black once again and the group groaned, prepared to be in a ghost fight.


	6. Ghost Fight

_"Here comes Napstablook."_

The white ghost just slightly larger in size than the children floated around in front of them, looking not-so-happy about being disturbed from their alone time. Frisk went on the use the check option on Napstablook.

 _"Napstablook_ \- _ATK_ _10_ _DEF_ _10_  
 _This monster doesn't seem to have a sense of humour..."_

The ghost seemed to hear what the voice said as well, considering he rolled his eyes and replied, "oh, I'm REAL funny." before sending a rain of.... tears? on the group. The team scrambled to dodge the bullets.

The group looked rather irritated with the ghost's attack, other than Frisk, who stood at their spot and gave Napstablook a patient smile.

"heh......." He chuckled. And sent a harmless grey message that read "REALLY NOT FEELIN UP TO IT RIGHT NOW, SORRY"

"Huh, he seems just a little bit better." Chase observed. Frisk nodded, then went to tell Napstablook a joke.

"heh... heh" The ghost laughed a bit more, but then sent another rain of bullets (or is it tears?) at the group, who swiftly dodged past them.

"I think cheering improved his mood a lot." Hannah said thoughtfully.

The voice everyone has been hearing all the time while battling came again. _"Napstablook wants to show you something."_ The group cheered him on.

Napstablook started crying... upwards? The tears joined together to form a top hat on the ghost's head. "let me try.... I call it 'dapper blook'. do you like it?...." He asked.

Everyone gave him a thumbs up. "Ten out of ten!" Ethan cheers.

"oh gee...." Napstablook blushed from all the compliments. And the room faded back to the purple and red background.

"I usually come to the RUINS because there's nobody around..." Napstablook floated up and down in front of the group awkwardly. "but today I met somebody nice... ... oh, I'm rambling again." He mumbled to himself.

"I'll get out of your way." He said before fading away, leaving the group clear to continue on their adventure.

Passing through the bottleneck, they see two openings in the other side of the room. Walking through the one in front of them, they reach a small room with spider webs sitting at one side of the room, with a sign standing beside the webs reading "Spider bake sale: come to eat food made for spiders, from spiders, of spiders!"

"Food!" Ethan went running towards the webs cheering with Frisk following behind him licking their lips. Ryan and Sophie then took a few steps forward to inspect the webs out of curiousity. The rest of the group took a few steps back instead.

"Did, did it just say 'of spiders'?" Angela stammered and pointed to the sign. Upon hearing that, Sophie halt at her tracks and took multiple steps back. Ryan however, took a few more steps forward.

"Gross, guys." Chase turned to Frisk, Ethan and Ryan who were rather enthusiastic about the spider food and were crowding around the smaller web by then. Inspecting the smaller web, Ryan turned to Chase and the others. "It says it's selling spider donuts one for 7G." He said.

"7G? You mean those coins we've been getting after fighting those monsters?" Ethan muttered while he and the rest of the group take out the shiny gold coins they've been keeping in their pockets throughout their journey. "Probably," Ryan replied. "Want to bet it's monster currency?"

Frisk dropped seven of the ten coins they have onto the web, and a small group of spiders came crawling down the web to carry the coins away. After a while, they appear again with a donut and gave it to Frisk.

"What do you know? It _is_ food!" Ethan cheered as he dropped his own coins onto the web, and received a donut himself in a minute.

"Are you seriously going to eat that? Gross!" Angela stared in disbelief.

"I'm no professional chef, but I don't think I want to eat something that might be made of spiders." Hannah added as Ryan walks back to the group holding one of the purple donuts himself.

"Hey, it might taste good!" He defended himself from the group who was staring at him in silence.

"Well, you're right about that!" Ethan yelled with a mouthful of donut. "It tastes amazing!"

"Ew!" Angela let out a screech and jumped backward. "Frisk! Don't copy what Ethan is doing! He's going to be sick before Toriel can even find us!"

Frisk took a look at Angela, then a look at the donut, before wolfing it down themselves despite Angela and Hannah's screeches of warning. "Tasty." They said after finishing the last of the donut.

"Well, I'm just gonna hold this for a while before eating it." Ryan said after watching the scene unfolding around him.

"Not if I throw it away once you're not looking." Angela replied. "I don't think we need three sick kids right now."

Exiting the small room and going through the other opening, they reach a large room with three froggits sitting in it. After chatting with them for a while, (and finding out there was a tiny fourth froggit in a crack of a wall) they continued on and found themselves in a room with yet another puzzle.

There was more spikes blocking their way, and there was six tarps on the floor. Near the entrance was a sign on the wall saying: "There is only one switch."

"Well, everyone pick a hole to fall into now. Frisk, you stay near the spikes and see if the spikes retract or something when we go down." Chase ordered.

"Okay." Frisk said while making their way across the room, then standing beside the spikes waiting for the rest of the group to go on.

Everyone chose their places, and on a count of three, everyone jumped in and fell through the floor.

Ethan fell right on top of something that looked like a carrot, and screamed rather loudly before being forced to fight it alone. Chase was in a similar situation but he rather accidentally stepped on it instead, and he dealt with it a lot more calmly then Ethan did. Their rooms were empty other then that though.

Ryan's room was completely empty, and he came back up the quickest. Hannah on the other side, found Napstablook laying down on the floor. "oh," he said. "i've fallen down, and i can't get up."

"oh wait," he paused after a while. "i'm a ghost. i can go through walls." And without another word he phased right through the walls and out of the room.

Angela was the one who found the switch. But just before she could pull it, she and the other children heard another scream coming from one of the rooms, and it wasn't Ethan's.

Sophie didn't fell down gracefully, she instead lost her step and fell into the pile of red leaves, losing the red ribbon tied on her head in the process.

"My ribbon!" She gasped, and rummaged through the leaves in a panic. Yet before she could get her hands on her ribbon, one of the carrot-like monsters popped out of the leaves.

Sophie let out a scream, and scrambled out of the room as fast as her legs could allow her to in a fright.

By the time she was up there, the rest of the group was above there waiting for her. They've all heard her scream. "Sophie! What happened down there?!" Hannah asked anxiously.

"And where did your ribbon go?" Ethan pointed out her missing ribbon. Her golden blonde hair seemed rather plain without her red ribbon on it. If Ethan remembered properly, he had never seen Sophie without her ribbon.

"I don't know, I think it fell off into the leaves when I fell. There was a monster, and I just ran. Oh no, I need to get it back, but the monster..." Sophie was talking so fast her words were starting to blend together. She loved her ribbon more than arguably anything else in the world. But she knows well enough she's not strong enough to fight off the monster down there on her own.

"Hey, it's fine. We'll fight that monster together." Chase assured Sophie. And in less than 10 seconds the group was surrounding the hole Sophie jumped in. And on another count of three, they all leapt down together and into the black background once again.

Standing in front of them was a monster that looked like a giant carrot with a face.

_Vegetoid came out of the earth!_

As usual, Frisk pressed the ACT button and used the check option.

_"_ _Vegetoid_ _-_ _ATK_ _6_ _DEF_ _6_   
_Serving Size: 1 Monster. Not monitored by the USDA._ _"_

"Very funny, voice in our heads." Angela muttered. The ghost beside Frisk smirks.

Vegetoid sends a rain of vegetables down at the group. And everyone knows how much getting a hit on the head by a quash is. Much like the other fights, they dodged the attacks rather easily.

Frisk patted their stomach as a sign to vegetoid. It smiles and offers a healthy meal.

"Eat your greens!" It cackled, and sent more vegetable-shaped bullets at them, but some of them are green in colour.

"Hmm, let's give a try." Chase said as he touched one of the green vegetables. His wounds he got from previous fights healed a bit. "Guys! Touch the green ones!" He yelled to the group. Hearing Chase's call, everyone ran to touch the green bullets.

"Are your greens!" Vegetoid cackled after the attack ended. Frisk pressed the MERCY button and spared it.

The black background fading once again, the group finds themselves standing in the red pile of leaves Sophie fell on a few minutes ago.

"I lost my ribbon just now when I fell into the leaves." Sophie explained. "I can't see it in the pile cause it's red like the leaves." Looking at the large pile of leaves that the ribbon was in, it was no wonder why Sophie couldn't find her ribbon before the monster from earlier popped out. The fact that the ribbon is the same shade of red as the leaves didn't help either.

"Well, let's get started then." Angela sighed and the rest of the group followed. Anyways, they started to kick and rummage through the dry, crisp leaves, trying to locate the ribbon.

After searching for just a minute, the group heard Ethan yell out. "Found it!" He called, and everyone turned to face his proud face.

Standing proudly, he was holding the ribbon in the air like a trophy. The look on his face was like he won some competition and was showing off his prize to everyone else.

"My ribbon!" Sophie yelled in delight, and ran to take her red ribbon from Ethan. "Thanks, Ethan!" She sang while tying the ribbon back onto her golden hair.

"No problem." He grinned. Finally finding the ribbon, everyone climbed back up to the room above them.

"Dang it, the spikes are still there." Chase groaned. Everyone turned towards the exit, which was still blocked by the sharp spikes. "No one found a switch to set it off?"

"Actually, I did." Angela said. "I just didn't have time to pull the lever down when Sophie lost her ribbon. I'll go do it now." And without another word, she jumped back down into the room she was in before and pulled the lever. The spikes above retracted with a "click!".

Angela climbed back up, ginning upon noticing the spikes are gone, and everyone headed off to the exit and of to the next room.

They arrived at a room with a puzzle that just consists of pressing a switch of a certain colour according to what a sign on a wall says. Every time they press the right switch, spikes near the exit will retract and allow them to go on.

It should've been done in just 5 minutes, but Ethan lengthen it to 15 minutes due to curiousity. Instead of pressing the correct switch that was clearly stated on the wall, Ethan just _had_ to press the wrong one for fun at the last puzzle, when no one was paying attention to him, which promptly teleported the group back into the first room somehow, forcing them to start all over again.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you keep Ethan in your line of sight at all times." Angela groaned after finishing the puzzle and the rest of the group (except Ethan) nods in agreement.

They found themselves in a room with a T-junction leading to two other rooms. Picking the one in front of them, they reach a small room with a froggit standing beside a door.

"Ribbit ribbit." It said, which ment "Just between you and me, I saw Toriel come out of here just a little while ago." It gestured at the door beside it.

"She was carrying some groceries. I didn't ask what they were for... We're all too intimidated to talk to her."

"Well, that figures." Chase commented. "As far as I know, everyone would be intimidated if a tall goat monster was walking around."

Walking through the door the froggit stood beside, they reach a balcony with the view of a town built all from purple bricks. It seemed to be abandoned, though.

"Hey, that's weird." Ryan said. "This town looks like a ghost town. Was it abandoned?"

"It still look pretty though." Sophie said, staring at the scenery in front of them.

"Didn't that froggit say that Toriel came from here carrying groceries? Where did she even get the stuff from? I don't see a way down." Chase said. It was true, the group couldn't see a way to go down there from the balcony.

"Maybe she got the stuff from somewhere else, and then just stopped by here to look around." Hannah reasoned, the group shrugged.

"Well, whatever." Ethan said. "We can always ask her later if we ever meet her again ."

Taking a last look at the scenery, they walked out of the room and onto the other path. They found themselves in front of a large tree, with its red leaves all fallen to the ground below it.

Before they were able to continue forward, they heard a voice.

"Oh dear, that took longer than I thought it would." Toriel appeared in the line of sight of the group, mumbling to herself, before picking up her phone to call the group.

The phone Chase held rang, and Toriel looked up in surprise before rushing to meet up with the group.

"How did you all get here, my children? Are you hurt?" Toriel asked worryingly while checking all of them for wounds. "There, there, I will heal you." She comforted them, and within seconds, all of their wounds had healed with a green glow.

"I should have not left you all alone for so long." She admitted. "It was irresponsible to try and surprise you all like this."

"Huh, what surprise?" Hannah piped up, and the group stared at Toriel with a confused expression.

"Err...." Toriel trailed away. "... Well, I suppose I cannot hide it any longer."

"Come, small ones!" She said, and walked off around the large tree, and the group followed her to the surprise she planned for the seven children.


	7. Home

Following Toriel, they arrived at a rather large house right behind the large tree. Leaves were scattered all over the ground in front of the house, with a sweeped pathway leading towards the door.

While everyone followed Toriel in the house, Frisk ran off and sank their hand into a yellow light that they've seen many times in the ruins. They don't understand why the rest of the group ignore it.

 _"Seeing such a cute, tidy house in the Ruins gives you determination."_ The ghost kid, who has become Frisk's new friend by then, says yet another monologue while looking at the light.

Going after the rest of the group who has already entered the house, Frisk finds themselves in a room with the walls painted beige, and the floor made of wood. Toriel was standing in front of the group looking around the house.

"Do you smell that?" Toriel asked. Hearing the question, the group stopped looking around and sniffed the air. "Surprise! It's a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. I thought we should celebrate the arrival of you all."

"I want you all to have a nice time living here, so I'll hold off the snail pie for tonight." Toriel continued. The group exchanged rather disgusted looks between each other on the word "snail pie".

"Here, I have another surprise for you children" She said before going off to a hallway at the right. Everyone followed behind her.

"Here it is!" She said, stopping in front of a room. "A room just for you all, I hope you children don't mind sharing a room. I have placed some sleeping bags on the floor, would you mind that?"

Before anyone could answer, the smell of burnt pie filled the air.

"Is something burning...? Um, make yourselves at home!" She called before running off to the kitchen, leaving the group outside their room.

"Well, let's go check the room out!" Ethan said before opening the door and running into the room.

Following Ethan, everyone went into the room Toriel prepared for them. Inside, the walls were painted a light shade of red, and a nightstand sitting in a corner had a lamp on it. On the other corner was a red bed and a box a dusty toys at the foot of it.

Beside the bed was an empty cabinet and an empty shoe rack. On the shoe rack was an empty photo frame.

On the floor was six sleeping bags, each with a colour of its own: orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue and purple.

"I call the orange one!" Ethan yelled as he jumped onto the orange sleeping bag and sat on it, calling the others to choose their own bed.

Without a second thought, Frisk leapt onto the red bed at the other side of the room and stayed there, claiming it. The rest of the group choose their own sleeping bags.

"Now when I think of it, it's pretty late right now outside the mountain, right?" Angela thought. Ryan pulled up his sleeves of his sweater just enough to take a look at his watch. "9pm, actually," he replied as he quickly pulled his sleeve back down. "I guess we should at least sleep before doing anything else, I'm tired." He tucked himself into the purple sleeping bag he choose.

"Well, we can't really do anything for now, and it is pretty late... I guess we should just sleep first." Chase agreed, placing his cowboy hat beside his yellow sleeping bag before going in it.

"Never thought we would be spending a night underground." Angela grumbled to herself while tucking herself in her blue sleeping bag.

Hannah switched off the lamp beside her, and went to sleep herself. "Goodnight, guys." She mumbled and closed her eyes.

"Goodnight." Everyone replied, before they all went to sleep in this strange home away from home.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_"Chara, please..... Wake up!"_

_"You are the future of humans and monsters...."_   
  
  


Frisk woke up on the red bed they slept on that night, looking around, they realised what they heard was just a dream. The ghost kid who was sitting on the bed with them for the night looked at them with a confused expression.

Frisk wanted to say something out loud, but before they opened their mouth, they remembered that everyone else was still sleeping. Getting off the bed, Frisk quietly tip-toed out of the room, dragging the ghost with them.

"Are you Chara?" They asked after shutting the door behind them. The half transparent kid stuttered a bit, giving Frisk a look before letting out a deep sigh.

 _"Yeah, my name is Chara. How did_ _you_ _know?"_ The ghost admitted, shuffling on the spot they were standing (or floating?) at uncomfortably. Apparently, they didn't expect Frisk to guess their name out so easily.

"Well, I had a dream, I think." Frisk answered matter-of-factly. "I heard a voice of... someone. They were talking about telling you to wake up and how you are the future of humans and monsters or something...." Frisk wanted to continue about their dream but seeing the ghost, or um, Chara flinch upon hearing the words "future of humans and monsters", they decided to stop talking for just a bit.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, Frisk looking around the place to dodge Chara's eyes while Chara fumbled around with their hands for a while. After a long moment of avoiding eye contact, Frisk tried to break the silence."Do you want to look around the house for a while?" Frisk asked.

Chara shrugged, _"I can't really leave your side so, why not?"_

They walked down the hallway to their left and passed by two doors. The one furthest down the hallway had a sign saying "room under renovations" while the other one beside their bedroom was most likely Toriel's room. At the end of the hallway was a large mirror.

 _"It's you!"_ Chara said half-jokingly. Frisk letter out a chuckle and looked at themselves in the mirror for a while. "Weird," Frisk said. "You don't have a reflection in the mirror." They were right, Chara couldn't be seen floating beside Frisk in the mirror.

 _"Well, I think I'm a ghost so that probably makes sense."_ Chara shrugged it off. Passing Toriel's bedroom door, the two of them started a debate on whether they should go in and take a peek.

"This sounds like a bad idea."

_"But what could possibly go wrong?"_

"A lot of things."

_"Okay, what's the worse that could happen?"_

"...... Fine, let's go in for just a little peek." And without another word, the two of them slipped into the room quietly and closed the door behind them.

~~•~--•--~•~~

Sophie woke up to the sound of talking outside the bedroom and the sound of a door opening and closing. Mumbling to herself, she sat up from her sleeping bag and looked around the room to see if daylight was shining through the window yet. Then it occurred to her that there were no windows in the room, and there was no way she could see sunlight in an underground house.

  
Looking around her, the red bed Frisk slept on was empty, and everyone else was still fast asleep. Ethan was practically sleeping on the floor at this point, his hand on Angela's face. Sophie was still amazed on how he doesn't fall off his bed back at the orphanage every night. Beside him, Angela was basically buried in her sleeping bag, only her face peeking out of the covers. Must've been cold sleeping in her ballet clothes. Ryan at the other side of the room was curled up tightly in a fetal position as he usually does, Sophie wonders how on earth was he comfortable that way. Hannah beside the lamp was hugging her pillow, her hair sticking up all over the place. It reminded Sophie of the Disney princess Anna from the old Disney movie about 30 years ago Frozen. Chase was sleeping on his belly, face in his pillow, somehow sleeping peacefully. (Ethan once said he looked like a corpse, and tried to take a photo of him dosing off. Angela made him delete the photo afterwards.)

Sophie was too awake to fall back asleep by that point, and decided to get up and look around the house, maybe find Frisk and have a talk since they were awake as well. Closing the door behind her after exiting, she took some time exploring the hallway, checking herself in the mirror and trying to remember the name of a plant sitting outside of what was probably Toriel's room (if she remembered correctly, it was something like "water sausage").

Satisfied with her finds, Sophie went on to check out the other side of the house she and her friends didn't get to explore the day before. Exiting the hallway where their bedroom was, she finds herself at the entrance of the house. A staircase leading downstairs was to her right, and the door to outside the house was to the left. In front of her was the direction Toriel rushed off to the day earlier after smelling something burning.

Going that way lead her to the other half of the house, which was a large room that was most likely both the dining room and the living room. The left side of the room had a large dining table and some chairs slotted in, and a sweet aroma filled the room. The right side was a fireplace beside a bookshelf. Near the bookshelf was a sofa that Toriel was sitting on. Upon closer inspection, Sophie realized that Toriel was reading a book titled "101 Uses of Snails".

Toriel noticed Sophie's presence when she stepped into the room. "My child, why are you up so early?" Toriel asked with the book still in her hands.

"I couldn't fall back asleep." Sophie said sheepishly, her hands fidgeting on her toy knife in hand.

"Ah, well. I suppose you can wonder around the house for a while. The pie is cooling in the kitchen over there, you can have a slice if you'd like." Toriel gestured towards the doorway at the other side of the room, where the sweet aroma was coming from.

"Thank you, Miss Toriel!" Sophie said before walking off towards the kitchen. She had just realized that she and her friends haven't ate dinner last night, (apart from Ethan and Frisk, if spider donuts count as dinner) and she was starving. The kitchen looked a lot like a normal kitchen, with an oven, a stove, a fridge, a counter and a sink. On the counter stood a large butterscotch-cinnamon pie.

Sophie was tempted to take a slice of the pie and stuff it in her mouth, but the size of the pie was a little too intimidating for her to. She decided to wait until the rest of her friends get up before eating with them. Besides, the pie was still a little too hot to eat.

Walking back into the dining room/living room, Sophie wondered to herself where else was there to wonder in the house. Then it occurred to her that she didn't try to go down the stairs at the entrance of the house yet, and rushed to do so in curiousity.

There wasn't any rooms downstairs, and it was more like a basement. The walls were a deep shade of purple like in the ruins and a long corridor stretched the length of the room. Taking a few steps down the hallway, Sophie was surprised that the footsteps made a loud echo. Before she could continue further, she heard some footsteps that didn't belong to her.

Toriel rushed down to the hallway and held Sophie by the hand. "I think you should play upstairs instead." She said as she brought her back upstairs.

Sophie watched as Toriel went into the living room to continue reading, wondering why did Toriel wear such a paranoid expression while telling her to go back upstairs. Deciding that there must be something down in the basement, she went down there again, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Her footsteps were still as loud as earlier, even tough she tried to tip-toe this time. Toriel came running back down to get her again. "It's dangerous to be down there." She said, before going back to her reading.

Sophie tried countless times to go down there again, trying different strategies and trying to be as silent as possible. Toriel somehow always found a way to notice that she was down there, and would drag her back up, while giving countless reasons to not go there (ranging from getting a cold to having nothing to do there) or giving her suggestions to do something else other than attempt to explore the basement.

On what must've been at least the tenth time being dragged upstairs, Toriel gave her a suggestion. "Why don't you go and explore the yard?" She asked while turning her head to the door. At that point, Sophie had gotten tired of the fruitless attempts to go down the stairs, and took Toriel's suggestion to see if there was anything else to see outside the house.

The yard didn't change much from the day before, the large tree still stood there with all its leaves laying on the floor. Walking around, Sophie thought about what could be in the basement.

" _Where could it lead too?" Sophie_ thought to herself. " _I_ _t's a very long hallway, something like a tunnel, so it probably wouldn't be a place to store stuff, right? Then where could it lead to?"_

Sophie thought about where she and her friends went to the day before, and were there any places that they've missed out while going through the underground. A small part of a conversation she remembered came into her mind.

_"...Just between you and me, I saw Toriel come out of here just a little while ago..."_

The froggit said that Toriel left the balcony with groceries in her hands, and the only part of the Ruins she and her friends haven't explored so far (other than the basement) was the purple town below the balcony. Sophie's eyes grew as wide, and without a second thought, she ran to find the balcony.  
  


The balcony wasn't very far from the house, so Sophie reached there rather quickly. Looking around, she tried again to find a way down to the buildings below.

Oddly enough, she noticed some vines growing on the sides of the balcony and on the wall beside it. Sophie wondered why she didn't noticed it the day before, but shrugged it off as a thought that she was probably too distracted by the view to notice them. Looking down, she saw that the vines grew down to the bottom floor, resembling a ladder and allowing people to climb on.

Sophie tried to climb on the vines, but realized it wasn't the best idea to climb when one of her hands was holding her toy knife. Grumbling silently to herself, she placed her toy down of the floor. "I'll come back for you after this." She said to it without much thought.

Gripping onto the vines, she slowly took a few steps down. The vines were holding onto the walls firmly, and didn't seem to show a problem holding her weight.

Sophie gave out a sigh of relief, and took another step down. Without warning, the vines lost the grip onto the wall, and she fell...


	8. Heartache

"SOPHIE!!" A voice rang out.

Sophie felt a hard tug on her left hand, and she found herself holding onto another hand while hanging dangerously high off the balcony. Before she could ask who was grabbing onto her, Frisk's head popped up from the other side of the balcony, trying their best to hold the weight of an average ten year old.

Sophie snapped back into reality, and used her other hand to try and pull herself up. Realising that the both of them don't have the strength to pull her over the balcony wall, Sophie raised her head and yelled. "HELP! Somebody help!"

Her hands were getting tired, and Frisk's grip on her was losing. But just before she fell another hand grabbed onto her right hand.

Sophie looked up, and saw Toriel grabbing onto her. Toriel grabbed onto both of Sophie's arms and lifted her up without much effort at all and let her down on the ground.

"Sophie!" Frisk cried before launching onto Sophie for a hug. Toriel let out a sigh of relief before hugging the both of them.

"My child! What on earth were you thinking?! You should be glad that I noticed this little kid wasn't sleeping in the room with the others! And then I heard your yells from the house! Thank the heavens I ran all the way here!" Toriel rapid fired a string of questions and a scolding to Sophie.

Sophie hung her head in shame. "I thought there was a way to go down the balcony from here. There was a lot of vines over there, and I thought I could climb..."

"What do you mean vines?" Frisk asked.

"Huh? The vines! They were all over the walls over there.... Huh?" Sophie pointed towards the place where she tried to climb down from. The vines from earlier disappeared. "There were vines over there! I swear!"

"Vines? My child, there were never vines growing on the walls over here. There's another way to get down to those buildings you see from here." Toriel explained to Sophie.

"But then, where.... How.... What?" Sophie couldn't understand how the vines suddenly disappeared.

"Was it that mean flower from yesterday?" Frisk asked.

"Huh, you mean Flowey?" Sophie turned to Frisk.

"Yeah! He's a plant right?"

"Oh dear, do you mean that annoying monster?" Toriel asked. "That little rascal has been scaring the monsters in the ruins for quite a while already. I'm not quite sure where did he come from"

"Anyways," Toriel continued. "By all means I should get you two back home now. The others should be awake by now."

Sophie and Frisk nodded. Each holding one of Toriel's hands, they begin to walk away from the balcony. Suddenly, Sophie stopped her tracks.

"Wait!" She called as she ran back to pick up her toy knife from the floor.

"Almost forgot about you." She said to no one in particular. Following Toriel and Frisk, they all went back to Toriel's house.

~~•~--•--~•~~

Angela woke up to Ethan's hand on her face, which really wasn't the best way to wake up. Her first instinct was to chomp down on his hand, but her common sense told her to use a more civilized form of revenge.

She got up, and shivered from the sudden cold sensation on her skin. She forgotten that she was still in her ballet practice clothes, and the room was really cold for a place underground and lacking air-conditioning.

Looking around for an idea for revenge, Angela laid her eyes on the pen Ryan clipped onto his notebook the other side of the room. A smirk appeared on the face. The classic revenge, the oldest trick on the book: time to give Ethan the third mustache that month.

Carefully getting onto her feet and making her way around the room, she suddenly stopped upon noticing that both Sophie's sleeping bag and the bed Frisk was sleeping on was empty.

  
Angela's first instinct was to quietly open the bedroom door and look for them. The house was empty, and there was no sign of either Toriel, Sophie or Frisk. Her stomach tightened, something felt wrong.

She quickly ran back into the bedroom and tried to get everyone to wake up. "Guys! GUYS!" She yelled.

Ryan jumped up, almost smashing his glasses he placed beside him the night before. Putting them back on, he yelled back at Angela. "Dude! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Oops, sorry!" She smiled sheepishly while making a "sorry" gesture before going back to waking up the rest of the group. Hannah was stirring from her sleep and groaning while Chase and Ethan didn't move at all.

"Ryan, help me wake Chase up while I deal with this idiot." Angela said while pointing to Ethan.

"On it." Ryan replied before chucking his notebook onto Chase. He woke up in a start.

"Hey, new record! You usually take at least three tries to wake up" Ryan said while Chase gave him a death glare.

Angela proceeded to kick Ethan as lightly as she can multiple times. She learned that she should really stop kicking people so hard about around the time she learned to kick Ethan. Her legs were really strong.

"Ethan, Ethan! ETHAN! WAKE UP!!" She yelled as he finally opened his eyes. Ethan grumbled as he stared right into Angela's soul. "Morning. Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine?" He greeted.

"Haven't I always?" She answered without missing a beat, before turning to everyone else. "Okay, now that everyone's awake, first order of business. Number one, Toriel, Sophie and Frisk are missing." She gestured towards the empty sleeping bag and bed. "Number two," Angela turned around a gave Ethan a slap on the face.

"Hey! What was that for?!" He yelled.

"For somehow falling out of your sleeping bag and onto my face!" She replied.

"Stop exaggerating! I bet I didn't even touch you!"

"Guys, can we not have you two on eachother's throats this early in the morning?" Chase grumbled. "Besides, didn't you already said that Frisk and Sophie are missing, Angela?"

"Oh yeah," Angela replied right before she and Ethan start bickering again. "Well, just now I..."

Before she could continue any further, the door opened, with Sophie, Frisk and Toriel at the other side.

"Guys!" Everyone crowded around the three of them. "Where have you guys been? Why didn't you tell us?" Hannah asked.

"Long story." Sophie replied, followed by a nod of approval from Frisk. "I think Flowey is still trying to kill us."

The group exchanged unsure and nervous looks for split second. "I want to be surprised, but I can't." Angela sighed. "He almost killed Sophie yesterday, and I don't think he'll be stopping now."

"Anyways, what did he do?" Ryan asked. Sophie and Frisk took the next few minutes telling out the story while Toriel went to the kitchen to prepare the group's breakfast.

"So I'm guessing Mr Smiley Face can control vines?" Ethan said after the story. "Geez, time to avoid every plant in a 5 metre radius."

"Tell me about that." Sophie shuddered from the memory of almost falling to her death, and almost being killed by Flowey's magic "friendliness pellets".

"Okay, now that we know Flowey is most likely gonna try and kill us, I think it would be nice to get outta here. Does anyone have any idea on the exit to the underground? Or do we have to climb back up from that really, really tall hole?" Angela asked.

Sophie lowered her head and muttered to herself for a moment, before her eyes lit up. "Of course!" She said all of a sudden, lightly smacking her head. Then she realised how loud was she at that moment, and lowered her voice. "The exit to the underground, I think it's Toriel's basement."

"Her what?" The group asked in unison.

"There's some stairs leading to a basement in the house." Sophie explained. "It's a really long corridor, but Toriel didn't let me go down there. She said a lot of things, like I'll get a cold and stuff like that."

"So I guess she has some secrets." Chase thought. "We can.." before he could finish his sentence, Toriel's voice echoed through the hallway and into the bedroom. "Children! Breakfast is ready! There's pie on the table!"

Chase turned back to the discussion. "Let's talk about this after breakfast, I'm starving." The group nodded in agreement and they all exited the bedroom.

~~•~--•--~•~~

The pie was fantastic. Frisk shoved a forkful of pie into their mouth while watching Ethan try and steal Angela and Ryan's pie, prompting yet another slap to the face by Angela and an eyeroll from Ryan. Meanwhile, Chara was sulking beside Frisk, apparently unable to eat the pie. (Frisk tried giving them a small piece, it went right through them)

After the meal, Hannah went to the kitchen to help Toriel with the dishes, which gave everyone time to discuss about the matter of Toriel's basement. After a while, Hannah came back and everyone continued the discussion.

  
_"Maybe we should try asking her?"_

_"Nah, ya think she'll just let us go?"_

_"Or we could sneak down."_

_"Sophie tried, did it work?"_

_"You don't think there would be another way to get out?"_

_"I did that about an hour ago and almost died."_

_"What about..."_

Frisk didn't really have anything to say in the conversation. Planning and thinking isn't really something they do on a daily basis. (honestly, Ethan would be the same if Angela and Chase kept him in check) Their most logical decision was simple: just ask Toriel.

So when everyone was too busy telling Ethan that kung-fu fighting Toriel wasn't a good idea, Frisk slipped off to find her.

Toriel was reading a book on her couch beside the fireplace. Upon noticing Frisk's presence, she let down her book on her lap.

"Oh, is there a reason you're here? Where are your friends?" She asked.

"They're talking, I'm bored." Frisk replied.

"Oh well, as long as you're here, I want you to know how glad I am to have someone here." She said. "There are so many old books I want to share, I want to show you all my favourite bug-hunting spot. I've also prepared a curriculum for your education." Beside Frisk, Chara tried to cover up their snickers as Toriel mentioned about education. _"She never changed."_ They laughed to no one in particular.

"... This may have come as a surprise to you, but I've always wanted to be a teacher!" Toriel continued. ".... Actually, that probably wasn't very surprising. But still, I'm glad to have you all living here." Frisk and Chara winched at the phrase "living here", knowing that was very much not what the group had planned to do.

"Oh, did you want to tell me something?" Toriel asked. "What is it?"

Frisk tensed for a second, before quietly answering. "Nothing." They said, suddenly forgetting the original thought of asking Toriel directly about how to go home.

"Well, talk to me if you need anything." Toriel said before going back to reading her book.

As Frisk walked back to the bedroom, they could hear some panicked voices coming from inside.

_"Wait, where's Frisk?"_

_"Wait, WHAT?!"_

_"No one was paying attention to them?!"_

_"Guys...."_

"I'm here." Frisk announced as they entered the room. Everyone froze in their positions and turned towards Frisk.

"Where where you?! We don't need another kid here to have a near death experience!" Angela scolded. Everyone else gave out a sigh of relief. "Don't tell me you tried to get to the basement."

"Nope, I was talking to Toriel."

"Did you ask her about leaving the Ruins?"

"Nope, she was talking about school and stuff."

"Are there even any schools underground?" Ryan questioned.

"Okay, so now that Frisk is back, should we ask Toriel how to get out of this place before Flowey kills us?" Chase asked the group. "As homey this place feels, I think we're probably on the news now up there in the village."

"Oh boy," Ethan groaned. "Miss Mary's gonna kill me!"

"And it's all your idea." Angela said in a sing-song tone. "And you're getting the blame~"

"No need to rub it in, Miss Ballerina." Ethan grumbled.

"Didn't I say-"

"Guys! No arguing for just one minute, will you?" Hannah complained.

"Alright, alright, everyone, please keep your mouths shut for a minute or two, would you?" Ryan said about as loudly as he could without Toriel noticing. "Ethan, Angela, appreciate your efforts of giving the team an interesting love drama, but maybe after we get the heck out of this mountain, please? Sophie, I know you almost got killed by Flowey the second time this week, but please stop spinning that knife around and come here, it's scary. Hannah, please sit beside those two idiots before cats and dogs happen again. Chase, refrain from shooting them with your gun, here did you even get that from? And Frisk, stop talking to your friend there, we need to go over this plan...."

The plan was simple enough. It involved asking Toriel how to get home, and if she doesn't want to reply, just make a mad dash to the basement. The group got out of the room and approached Toriel, who was still reading her book.

"Oh, hello! Did you want to hear about the book I am reading?" Toriel asked. "It is called 101 Uses for Snails. How about it?"

Everyone shuffled uncomfortably on the spot they stood. Frisk finally gathered the courage to talk. "How do we exit the Ruins?" They asked.

"Um..." Toriel's expression shifted. "How about an exciting snail fact? Did you know that snails sometimes flip their digestive systems as they mature? Interesting."

"Gross." Hannah commented. Frisk repeated their question. "How do we exit the Ruins?"

Toriel's smile faded, she closed her book and stood up. "I have to do something. Stay here," She said before walking out of the room.

"Plan B it is!" Ryan yelled, and everyone ran towards the basement in a mad dash.

Down the basement, footsteps echoed through the long hallway. Everyone stopped at their tracks seeing Toriel stand in the middle of the hallway, back turned against them.

"You all wish to go 'home', do you not?" She asks.

"Ahead of us lies the end of the Ruins, a one-way exit to the rest of the underground."

"I am going to destroy it. No one will ever be able to leave again."

"Now, be good children and go upstairs." Without another word, Toriel continued walking forward. Without any hesitation, the group continued following her.

Toriel must have noticed them still following, as she stopped on her tracks again.

"You naive children..." She did not bother to turn her head, she knew they were listening. "... If leave the Ruins, they.... Asgore, will kill you all."

"I am only protecting you, don't you understand?"

".... Go to your room."

She continued forward. The group hesitated this time. _"_ _Asgore_ _?"_ Chase repeated the name to the group. Frisk turned, seeing Chara shrink in what seems to be fear and confusion.

They followed her to a turn in the tunnel, going 90 degrees to the left. "Do not try to stop me." Her voice echoed down the corridor. "This is your final warning."

They followed her into a purple room. The only thing that stood out in the place was a large purple door, with had the symbol on Toriel's robe carved into it.

"You all want to leave so badly?" She asked.

No one replied.

"Hmph. There is only one solution to this."

"Prove yourselves..." She said as the room started to flicker between purple and black. The group jumped and huddled together.

"... Prove to me that you all are strong enough to survive!" She yelled right before they plunged into complete darkness.

_"Toriel blocks the way!"_

Toriel stood strong in front of the group, blocking the exit behind her. With a shaky hand, Frisk slowly pressed the check option.

_"Toriel_ _-_ _ATK_ _80_ _DEF_ _80_   
_Knows best for you."_

It might have been the group's imagination, but the usually cheeky narrator of their fights seemed to have a more serious voice than usual.

Toriel didn't say anything, her hands glowed a hot red for a quick second before she sent a wave of fire towards the group. Grabbing onto the younger ones, Angela, Chase and Ethan pulled everyone away from the fire.

Frisk tried to talk to Toriel. She didn't say anything, and instead sent streams of fireballs down at them. Frisk yelped and jumped to the side.

Frisk tried to talk again, but with no avail. Toriel simply sent wave after wave of fire every time anyone tried to talk.

Talking wasn't going to go anywhere.

"Try sparing her then!" Hannah yelled while jumping aside from the ball of fire coming towards her. "If there's no other option in ACT, just spare her!"

"But her name hasn't turn yellow yet!" Ryan yelled back. The day before, while talking to some froggits in the Ruins, they learned that enemies could only be spared when the opponent's name turned yellow. The advice was true, and helped the group a lot afterwards in later battles.

Sophie almost forgotten to dodge, and Ethan yanked her aside right before another stream of fire was sent towards her face. "Be careful!" He yelled, before jumping aside from yet another fireball barrelling towards him.

As she dodged, Sophie tried to remember the conversation with that particular froggit a day ago.

_"Remember, sparing is just saying that you won't fight someone. Maybe one day, you'll have to do it even if their name isn't yellow."_

Sophie ducked below an incoming fireball, before yelling towards the others. "Keep on sparing her! There's nothing else we can do!"

When Toriel finally stopped her attack, Frisk chose the spare option.

Toriel didn't react. She continued attacking.

"Again!" Sophie yelled.

This time, Chase dived towards the MERCY button, and hit the spare option again.

Toriel still didn't react. She still continued raining down fire on the group.

When it finally stopped, Ryan slammed the button again. Toriel appeared to not react, but right before she sent down another attack, Sophie saw a slight change of emotion in her expression, before it hardened again.

She sent another wave of fire. Hannah ran across the room to press the button.

Toriel's expression shifted from something unreadable to confusion. She hesitated, but continued her attacks.

 _"It's working!"_ She thought, but snapped back into reality when fire nearly burned her ribbon off.

"Why won't you stop trying to burn us? Can't we just talk?!" Angela yelled in frustration.

"That's it! Sparing her isn't going anywhere!" Ethan yelled. Sophie's eyes widen as Ethan reached to choose the talk option again.

"Stop!" She yelled. Ethan froze for just enough time to let Sophie pick the spare option again.

"What are you doing?" Toriel yelled while throwing a fireball at her and Ethan. They both jumped to the side as quickly as possible.

"Ethan, can you get the others to the side? I have an idea." Sophie asked as she spared Toriel again.

"You sure about this? This might take forever."

"Don't worry, I have the patience, can you tell them to be like that for a while?"

"Attack or run away!" Toriel yelled. Sparks of fire lit up in her hands as she threw multiple fireballs at Sophie.

"Will do!" Ethan yelled as he ran to call the rest of the group, dodging past fireballs as he went.

Sophie turned and continue sparing Toriel. Every time she did, Toriel would sent another wave of attacks at her. Every time the attacks stopped, Sophie would stand strong where she was and spare her again.

_* Spare_

"What are you proving this way?"

_* Spare_

"Fight me or leave!"

_* Spare_

"Stop it."

_* Spare_

"Stop looking at me that way."

_* Spare_

"Go away!" Toriel yelled.

Sophie didn't. She stayed patient. She stood still. She didn't need to dodge the fire this time, she noticed. The fire seemed to not want to hurt her either, harmlessly gliding past her.

She spared again.

"..."

The attacks stopped altogether.

_* Spare_

"......"

_* Spare_

"I know you want to go home, but...."

_* Spare_

"... But please.... Go upstairs now."

_* Spare_

"I promise I will take good care of you all here."

_* Spare_

"I know we don't have much, but..."

_* Spare_

"We can have a good life here."

_* Spare_

"Why are you making this so difficult?"

_* Spare_

"Please, go upstairs."

_* Spare_

"....."

_* Spare_

"No, I understand. You all would just be unhappy trapped down there." She sighed, and the background faded back to the purple walls.

The group gathered behind Sophie as Toriel stood in front of the door, looking as she was thinking.

"The RUINS are very small once you get used to them. It would not be right for any of you to grow up in a place like this." She said with a hint of regret in her tone. "My expectations... My loneliness... My fear... For you, my children... I will put them aside"

"If you all truly wish to leave the Ruins... I will not stop you." She paused and took a deep breath. "However... When you leave, please do not come back."

"I hope you all understand." She said with a bitter smile, and pulled Sophie, who was standing at the front of the group, into a hug. The rest joined in.

Between Toriel's soft arms and her all of her friends hugging her tightly, Sophie relaxed. She had forgotten how nice it felt to be hugged. When they all finally let go, she even missed the feeling a bit.

"Goodbye, my children." Toriel said, and walked around the group towards the hallway back to the house. Just before she walked away, she turned to look at the group one last time, and walked off for real.

Frisk turned to see Chara look like they were going to run after Toriel. They held back, and turned away from Frisk, quietly muttering something to themselves.

"Sophie!" Ethan yelled while pulling Sophie into another hug. "That was awesome! Do you know exactly just how cool you looked just now?!"

"You look like you were in an extreme standoff against a powerful villan or something." Ryan joked.

"Well, it did feel like that, but Toriel's not a villan!" Sophie laughed.

"Well, Toriel said that there's more to the underground behind that door, right?" Chase gestured towards the door. "Let's get moving!"

"Oh dear, how much more of the underground is there?" Angela whined.

"And Toriel did say someone called Asgore or something will kill us." Hannah added.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Ethan said as he pushed the large door open. "Until then, let's get outta here!"

"I think 'build the bridge when we get to it' sounds more accurate." Angela said as she and the group walked through the door.

The other side of the door was simply more hallway. They continued walking, the purple walls of the Ruins got brighter and brighter, until they reached a large doorway.

Walking through the doorway, they find themselves in a room strangely similar to the room where they first met Flowey. The room was still dark, and had a hole through the ceiling where light shine through, just like the room the day before. In the middle of the patch of light was, as expected, a path of green grass.

Before the group could do anything, Flowey popped out of the ground.

"Clever." He said in a mocking tone. "Verrrrryyyy clev- EEP!!" He screamed as Sophie marched up and stomped on him. He burrowed back to the ground just before he turned into a pressed flower.

"Well, that was fast." Ethan noted. "Never heard a plant scream either."

"That's for trying to kill me twice." Sophie said to the ground below her, before skipping back to join her friends.

The stared at the patch of grass for a while, expecting Flowey to pop back up.

"You think he would come back up?" Hannah turned to the group.

"Later, I guess. Can it be my turn to stomp him?" Ethan asked.

"Let's just take turns stomping on him when we see him again." Angela suggested. "All with my plan say aye."

"Aye!"

Walking around the patch of grass, they see an entrance that looked ridiculously similar to the one at the start of the Ruins. Behind it was a large door.

Chase went up to try and push the door open. "Wow, this thing is cold." He muttered. "And heavy too. Mind helping, guys?"

On a count of three, the group shoved the door open. A blast of cold air sweeped into the room, sending chills down everyone's spine.

At the other side of the door was a path of snow and evergreen trees at the side of the path.

"Is that snow outside?" Angela asked. "Why is there snow outside?"

"We're in a underground world with talking flowers and frogs. Are you really gonna question some snow?" Ryan questioned.

"Fair point." Angela replied. And one by one, they all walked through the door, and shut it behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end of the Ruins ark! Jesus, I didn't expect to have written 4183 words. I thought "eh this might be 1500? 2000" and boom, I wrote so much that it took me two days more than I expected to finish writing. Everyone ready for the Snowdin ark? Time for puns, puns, and yes, more puns.


	9. Sans

It was cold. Really, really cold.

Everyone except for Ryan and Frisk was wearing short sleeves, which was a horrible choice to be wearing in a winter wonderland. Ethan and Sophie were silently cursing their choice of wearing shorts and a skirt respectively, and Angela was slowly starting to wonder whether if would have been a lot more better to stay with Toriel forever.

"Why, of all things we could've wondered too, did we end up in winter?" Angela complained. Her ballet practice clothes were slowly losing her respect, and her ballet shoes giving her cramps were not really helping matters either.

"Ah, one of the many reasons and benefits of wearing a sweater everywhere you go." Ryan boasted the fact he was the most comfortable one in the situation. Even Frisk was shivering, despite the fact they were wearing long sleeves as well. Angela was starting to think the biggest threat wasn't going to be Flowey or Asgore, but dying of hypothermia.

"I'm going to pray that moving will help warm things up." Ethan said while rubbing his palms together. "Let's go."

They walked down the path, snow crunching beneath their feet. (Angela was seriously thinking of finding something else to wear. Again, ballet shoes don't do a lot in the cold either.) In a distance was a bridge hanging above what looked to be a sunken part of land, with something like an oversized gate in front of it.

"Is that a swing set?" Hannah squinted at the strange contraption in a distance. "Or is it a gate for giants?"

"Are _all_ monsters that huge? That thing doesn't even look like a gate!" Chase commented.

They walked a bit more. It wasn't long before Angela felt a strange feeling in the atmosphere around her. The others must have felt it too, as they were looking around their surroundings constantly and nervously.

"I think someone is following us." Ryan whispered to the group. No one disagreed with the statement.

"I don't see anyone behind us." Chase, who was walking at the back of the group, turned behind him to check again. The snowy path behind them showed no signs of another person, or monster, following them.

They continued walking, albeit a bit more faster. Frisk found a rather large and tough-looking stick on the ground, but the group ignored it.

"Too heavy to pick up, Frisk." Angela commented as they walked on. But just after they took a few steps, they heard a loud _"Snap!"_

Turning around, the stick was snapped into peices, but there was no one to be seen near it. Ethan and Frisk went back to study it, before running back to the group.

"Smashed like it was nothing." Ethan commented. "I think we should be running by now."

So they did. Frisk crashed into a halt in front of the oversized gate, causing everyone behind them to bump into each other.

"What are you doing? That guy or something is right behind us!" Ethan wailed. Now that they have stopped walking, the footsteps of the person following them were obvious. Before Ethan could shove everyone forward, the footsteps stopped.

 _"Let me guess, he's right behind us?"_ Angela whispered.

No one dared reply.

 **"humans."** A deep voice boomed. **"don't you know how to greet a new pal?** **"**

**"turn around, and shake my hand."**

Chase, with one hand holding onto his empty pistol, slowly turned around. The rest of the group followed him.

The shadows casted down by the huge trees beside the path stopped the group from being able to see the unknown person clearly. They stuck out one of their hand, waiting for the group's next move.

Chase's eyes narrowed down at the hand, before cautiously reaching out to shake it with his free hand.

_"_ _Plbbbbbbbbbllt_ _"_

Everyone stood in confused silence while exchanging equally confused expressions for a long while. The stranger let out a chuckle.

"heheh, the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's always funny." Stepping forward, the strange figure turned out to be a short skeleton, just slightly taller than Frisk. He wore a blue jacket and a pair of shorts that resembled Ethan's sport pants, with a huge smile on his face. (How could he talk, no one knows.)

"anyways, you all are humans, right? i've never seen you kids around here before." He asked. "that's hilarious. i'm sans, sans the skeleton."

"i'm supposed to be on watch for humans right now. but.... y'know.... i don't really capturing anybody." He shrugged, prompting everyone to let out a sigh of relief.

"now my brother, papyrus.... he's a human-hunting _fanatic_." Upon that statei, the group groaned in distress, annoyance, fear and everything in between.

"hey, actually, i think that's him over there." Sans noted. As if on cue, the group could hear loud stomping from a distance.

Angela turned around. From afar, she could make out a small figure from a distance charging towards the group. The stomping got louder by each second.

"but don't sweat, i have an idea," Sans broke the tension in the group. "go through this gate thingy."

Angela narrowed their eyes at Sans, before turning around with the rest of her friends to look at the oversized gate. The small figure in a distance was growing larger and the sound of boots stomping on snow was getting louder.

"yeah, go right through. my bro made the bars too wide to stop anyone." Sans insisted. The group walked pass the gate, with Sans following behind them.

"quick, behind those conveniently-shaped lamps." He gestured to a line of lamps seemingly randomly placed in the middle of a winter forest.

The group decided to not question about the lamps. If seven lamps lined up in a row is going to be the only thing saving them from a skeleton's human-hunting fanatic brother, then so be it. Sprinting off the path, they all hid behind each lamp respectively.

The stomping was probably as loud as humanly possible at the point. Then, before Angela could turn around and see what was happening, a loud voice called out.

"SANS!!"

Angela almost jumped up and blew their cover. Judging by the sound of something rocking, Angela assumed Ryan almost knocked the lamp he was hiding behind over. He winced, before turning towards Angela and making an "I'm okay" gesture. Carefully, Angela turned behind her and took a peek at who was yelling.

Papyrus, Sans's brother, turned out to be a tall skeleton possibly towering Chase. He wore a strange armour-looking costume, and had a red scarf tied on his neck.

"sup, bro." Sans turned to meet his brother, who seemed very upset about something.

"YOU KNOW WHAT 'SUP', BROTHER!" Papyrus yelled. "IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS AND YOU HAVEN'T. RECALIBRATED. YOUR. PUZZLES! YOU JUST HANG AROUND OUTSIDE YOUR STATION! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?!"

"staring at these lamps. they're pretty cool. do you wanna look?" Sans gestured towards the group's hiding spot. Angela shrunk back behind her lamp, silently praying that Papyrus wouldn't bother to check and throwing a lot of mental swear words towards Sans.

Thankfully, Papyrus couldn't care less about the lamps. "NO! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!!" He yelled while stomping the ground below him. "WHAT IF A HUMAN COMES THROUGH HERE?!! I WANT TO BE READY!! I WILL BE THE ONE! I MUST BE THE ONE! I WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN!"

Angela was seriously thinking of getting some earmuffs. The skeleton was seriously loud for someone without a voice box. Before she could continue silently complaining, Papyrus started yelling again.

"THEN, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GET ALL THE THINGS I UTTERLY DESERVE! RESPECT, RECOGNITION! I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD! PEOPLE WILL ASK TO BE, MY 'FRIEND'? I WILL BATHE IN A SHOWER OF KISSES EVERY MORNING!"

"hmm.... maybe those lamps will help you." Sans shrugged again, bearing a completely relaxed expression, which more or less added oil to the fire on Papyrus's face, or, skull.

"SANS!! YOU ARE NOT HELPING!! YOU LAZYBONES!! ALL YOU DO IS SIT AND BOONDOGGLE!!" Papyrus bellowed, stomping the ground again. Angela was surprised that the ground hasn't collapsed below him yet. "YOU'RE GETTING LAZIER AND LAZIER EVERYDAY!!"

"hey, take it easy. i've gotten a ton of work done today. a _skele-ton_." Sans grinned at his own joke, while Papyrus looked like he was about to explode. Angela tried to keep herself from groaning out loud, while Chase was letting out a really loud groan. Somewhere, Angela could hear Sophie and Hannah trying to stop their snickering while the sound of a person trying really hard not to laugh out loud was probably from Ethan.

"SANS!!"

"come on, you're smiling."

"I AM AND I HATE IT!" Papyrus let out an annoyed sigh. "WHY DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME, HAVE TO DO SO MUCH JUST TO GET SOME RECOGNITION...."

"wow, sounds like you're really working yourself... to the _bone_."

There was more snickering, more groaning, and Chase looked like he was using all of his will to not scream out loud. Beside her, Ryan's expression was as emotionless as ever.

Papyrus gave out a disgusted groan, followed by what was most likely the skeleton equivalent of an eyeroll. "I WILL ATTEND TO MY PUZZLES. AS FOR YOUR WORK? PUT A LITTLE MORE.... _BACKBONE_ INTO IT."

"NYEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!!" He cackled as he ran off the opposite direction, leaving Sans standing awkwardly in the middle of the path. Just as Angela thought the coast was finally clear, Papyrus turned around and ran back, giving out a last "HEH" before running away for good.

The group stood in silence for a moment, before Sans talked. "okay, you guys can come out now."

Walking out from their hiding space, they turned towards the direction Papyrus left, half expecting him to run back and catch them.

"you kids oughta get going. he might come back, and if he does, you'll have to sit through more of my hilarious jokes." Sans grinned. (Or at least, it looked like he did. It's hard to tell when a skeleton is smiling all the time.)

"No thank you, we're outta here." Chase said as he dragged the rest of the group towards the direction Papyrus took off, clearly not ready to deal with more puns than he needed.

They didn't make it more than a few steps before Sans spoke again. "actually, hey.... hate to bother ya kids, but can you do me a favour?"

Angela raised her eyebrow. "In that case, what favour is it?"

"i was thinking... my brother's been kinda down lately... he's never seen a human before, and seeing you kids might just make his day."

Angela grabbed onto Sophie's hand, and was ready to bolt for her life. "Yeah, no. I don't think any of us wants to risk getting murdered by a giant skeleton."

"But he seems nice!" Hannah protested.

"And looks don't say anything~" Ryan repeated the same statement he said the day before in a sing-song tone.

"don't worry, he's not dangerous, even if he tries to be." Sans reassured. The team stared at him suspiciously.

He didn't wait for a response. "thanks a million," he continued. "i'll be up ahead." Upon that, he promptly turned around and walked the opposite direction the group was going off, back to the forest.

The group stood in silence for a moment.

"So," Ethan started. "Yesterday, we fell into a mysterious underground world, met a serial killer flower and a nice goat mom who I would not complain if she adopted me. Today, we fought said mom, and ended up in an underground winter with a pun telling skeleton and a human-hunting skeleton."

"That's about it." Ryan agreed. "Also, we have the king of monsters waiting to murder us and harvest our souls."

"Well, looks like we have no time to waste then." Chase concluded. "Let's go."

And they continued on their journey, following where Papyrus went.


	10. Snowy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably give a warning so heads up: some mention of dark themes in this chapter

Frisk ran off the path again, swiping their hand at a portion of the air just above the ground, before turning back to join the rest.

"Seriously Frisk, what are you even doing?" Ethan finally had enough of watching Frisk occasionally run off the path and swipe their hand every once in a while. It was really confusing.

"I don't know, I just like touching the light." They shrugged. "It's warm and feels nice. Why do you guys ignore it?"

Ethan gave Frisk a look, turned to where Frisk was earlier to make sure there's nothing there, and turned back to face them. He was happy to note that he rest of the group looked just as confused as him.

"Does this have something to do with your friend?" Ryan asked.

Frisk glanced at something beside them, before looking back at them and replying. "Yeah, I guess."

"Huh, okay." Ethan responded, still a bit confused. Wasn't Frisk a little too old to have imaginary friends?

The path they were on branched into two separate pathways, one to the front of them and one to the left. Somewhere between the pathways was a small wooden box and a sign standing beside it.

"This is a box." Ryan read from the sign. "You can put an item inside or take an item out."

"I'm questioning whether monsters know what a box is or not." Angela commented.

"There's more to the sign, ok? The same box will appear later. So don't worry about coming back. Sincerely, a box lover." Ryan continued. "You know what? I'm not gonna question the logic in that. We've met talking skeletons, what's more to a teleporting box?"

Ethan grinned. "Well, let's do a test then." He said as he took off his pink gloves. "Let's see if my stuff is still in some random box down the road."

"Don't blame me if your gloves get lost." Angela rolled her eyes. Ethan stuck his tongue out in response.

"Hey, the things people do for science." Ryan said as he opened the empty box and stuck the doughnut he brought earlier inside. Ethan placed his gloves in as well.

As a second thought, Ethan untied the bandana around his neck. "Should I put this in too?" He asked.

Chase shrugged. "I guess if you want too. We can always come back to get the stuff if we don't find another magical box."

Ethan gave a look at his bandana. When his mom first got it for him, it was a bright orange, his favourite colour. But over the years the colour started to fade, but was still reasonably clean (which was shocking, considering how almost everything he owned was either a mess or broken).

He decided to leave it in the box along with his gloves and Ryan's doughnut before shutting it. "Well, we better see another one of these boxes before we get killed, or I'll be mad."

They chose the path to the left first. Down that path led to a river. On the river bank was a fishing rod affixed to the ground.

Frisk reeled the cast in. On the another end was a photo of a weird-looking monster.

"Call me!" Frisk read the wording behind the photo. "Here's my number."

They decided to not call the number.

Backtracking, they went on to the other path. They jumped up as the background started to flicker black again, before plunging into battle.

_"_ _Snowdrake_ _flutters forth!"_

Snowdrake looked like a duck that decided to stick his head into a oversized snowflake. As always, Frisk chose the check option.

_"_ _Snowdrake_ _\- ATK 6 DEF 2_   
_This teen comedian fights to keep a captive audience."_

"Ice puns are _snow_ problem." He joked as he sent blades that seemed to be made of ice after the team.

Ethan was laughing to the point he almost forgot to move about and was almost hit by the sharp ice. After some time, he learned that any magic attacks monsters sent at him would go right through him as long as he was moving around, which was rather helpful. Turning around, he saw Sophie laughing as well, but trying not to flinch or move as the ice went through her. After some talking, they realised that Sophie was the opposite of Ethan, as long as she stood still, the attacks wouldn't harm her.

Ethan's thoughts were interrupted by Snowdrake. "See? Laughs! Dad was wrong!" He cheered.

 _"Snowdrake_ _is pleased with its 'cool' joke_. _"_

Frisk spared Snowdrake, and the background flickered back to the snowy landscape.

They continued on the path in front of them, before stopping in their tracks when they saw the skeletons in front of them in the middle of a conversation.

"SO, AS I WAS SAYING ABOUT UNDYNE..." Papyrus said as he turned towards the group. Ethan saw Chase grab onto his pistol again as everyone shrank back.

Everyone stood at the same spot they were in shocked silence. Papyrus and Sans exchanged looks, then stared at the group again, then exchanged looks again, then stared at them again. The cycle repeated for multiple times before the two brothers turned around, back facing the team.

 _"SANS!! OH MY GOD!! ARE THOSE... HUMANS?!?!?!"_ His tone matching a stage whisper.

They turned to face the group again.

"uhhh.... actually, i think those are rocks." Sans replied.

Turning behind him, Ethan noticed a pile of rocks by the side of the path.

"OH." Papyrus groaned, the disappointment clear in his voice.

"hey, what are those in front of the rocks?"

"OH MY GOD!!!" Papyrus screeched, before leaning towards Sans. _"ARE.... ARE THOSE HUMANS?"_

 _"yes."_ He whispered back.

"OH MY GOD!! SANS!! I FINALLY DID IT!!" He cheered. "UNDYNE WILL... I'M GONNA... I'LL BE SO.... POPULAR!! POPULAR!! POPULAR!!!!"

Papyrus quickly got his emotions under control as he cleared his throat. "HUMANS! YOU SHALL NOT PASS THIS AREA!! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL STOP YOU!!"

"I WILL CAPTURE ALL OF YOU! AND YOU ALL WILL BE SENT TO THE CAPITAL! THEN.... THEN!!"

"... I'M NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT." He muttered.

 _"What about we get killed by the king?"_ Angela whispered.

"IN ANY CASE! CONTINUE ON.... ONLY IF YOU DARE! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!" He cackled as he ran the opposite direction, leaving the group and Sans behind.

"well, that went well." Sans grinned. "don't sweat it, kids. i'll keep an eye socket out for ya" He said as he walked away, following Papyrus.

"Oh, we're so screwed." Chase groaned.

They continued on their path, following where the skeletons went. Yet just after they took a few steps, the background flickered black again. The group groaned loudly as they plunged into battle again.

This time, the enemy was a small gnome-like monster with a huge block of ice as a very eye-catching hat. It took a while to finally peel everyone's eyes off the odd hat, but in the end, the match ended peacefully without anyone being impaled by ice.

Out of the fight, they noticed they were beside a large cardboard box that seemed to be made into a sentry station. Taking a closer look, the team noticed there was some wording on it.

"You observe the well-crafted sentry station." Frisk read. "Who could have built this? You ponder.... I bet it was that very famous royal guardsman!"

"Note: not yet a very famous royal guardsman." They added.

They continued down the path. Just a few meters away from the "sentry station" was a sign standing on the ground. _Absolutely NO MOVING!!!_ , it read.

"Please don't tell me it has something to do with that sentry station over there." Chase commented. Turning to the right, Ethan saw another sentry station sitting not very far away from the sign. To be honest, it looked more like a doghouse than a station.

Carefully, he inched forward to the station for a closer look. Judging by the light footsteps he guessed the rest were following close behind him. From the distance he was at, the station seemed empty. Yet to his surprise (and the rest of his friends'), a rather large dog popped out of the station, looking around. Instinctively, everyone froze on their spot.

"Did something move?" He asked himself, somehow not noticing the huge group of humans in front of him. "Was it my imagination?"

"I can only see moving things." He muttered to himself, the sentence providing an explanation on the situation. He growled. "If something WAS moving.... For example, a human...."

The dog leaped out of his station, grabbing out a knife that glowed bright blue from behind him.

"I'll make sure it NEVER moves again!"

The background flickered to the black battleground yet again.

_"Doggo blocks your way!"_

The dog looked around suspiciously, his eyes seemingly going right through the group.

_* Check_

_"Doggo - ATK 6_ _DEF_ _1_   
_Easily excited by movement. Hobbies include: squirrels."_

"Don't move and inch." He growled, holding up the glowing blue dagger. Ethan gulped. He hated knives. Sophie's toy was disturbing enough, he didn't need a full size, glowing blue dagger hacking at him.

Doggo swinged the knife. Ethan yelped and ran to the side, expecting the dagger to go through him as usual. Instead, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his body. He could hear everyone except for Sophie yelling in pain like him as he dropped to the ground.

"MOVING?" The dog bellowed. Ethan tried to get up, despite the pain and the confusion on how his ability failed to work.

_"Doggo is confirming the moving objects."_

"How are we supposed to dodge that?!" Angela complained. "There's no space to get out of the way!"

"And it's no fair! Sophie didn't even get hurt!" Hannah added.

"That's cause I didn't move! I don't get hurt as long as I stay still!" Sophie yelled back.

"How does that work?! I don't get hurt if I move, and that thing just hacked me!" Ethan snapped.

"Guys, the sword is the same colour as Sophie's soul." Ryan pointed out. He was right, Sophie's soul glowed the same cyan aura as the dagger.

"And didn't Doggo said don't move?" Frisk grumbled.

Doggo growled again, raising up his dagger for another swing.

"Don't move!" Chase yelled right before Doggo swung his knife.

Ethan tried to stay still. Emphasis on tried. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes, yet the sound of the dagger rushing through the air forced his eyes open, only to be greeted with the look of a monster about to hack him with a knife.

Everything suddenly felt so sudden yet like it was in slow motion. He felt like he was being pulled back to his memories, the ones where he remembered blood, and screaming and being terrified.

Ethan screamed, and he flinched. He felt more pain, and he fell to the cold ground again.

"Ethan!" Someone yelled, he didn't know who. He looked up, everyone was standing up, perfectly fine.

Chase came and pulled him up. "Hey, you okay?" The concern in his tone was clear.

"Y... Yeah. I'm okay. I just freaked out, that's all."

"Dude, your health is already halved by those attacks. You gotta stop moving."

Ethan turned at looked at his soul. Below the orange heart, the health bar was red halfway, with the numbers beside it saying "10/20".

"Well, I'm currently trying to." He huffed, trying to ignore the thoughts running around his mind. "Does anyone have something that can heal me? I'm outta food."

Everyone shook their head. "Of all times, just when I left that doughnut in that box." Ryan grumbled.

"Guys!" Hannah yelled, which pulled everyone back into the attention of Doggo, who was ready for another attack.

The dog lifted his dagger again, and swung it at the team.

Ethan hated it. He tried to stay still again. He tried to close his eyes again. He tried to look away.

It didn't work.

The knife was mere inches away from his face as his eyes forced open again, and he screamed. Yet again, pain shot through his body and he dropped to the ground.

The yellow bar below his soul dropped again, 5/20.

"Oh god, I almost forgot." He heard someone said, before he felt someone's hands on his back.

"Ethan," Angela said, slowly pulling him up from the ground. "You're scared of the knife, aren't you?"

"What?.... No.... No I'm not...." Ethan stammered, not even noticing the tears starting to stream from his eyes.

"God, you still suck at lying. Ethan, we're not idiots, c'mon, it's okay."

"I'm not scared... I'm not... I'm not..."

Ethan wouldn't have noticed at this time, but with a nod of approval from Angela, Sophie had silently, and rather shamefacedly, slipped her toy into her pocket.

"Hey, remember when we were like ten? You always said something like, _I'm the bravest person in the world!_ What happened?" Angela asked.

".... I just.... I can't... I.... I'm not brave... I'm scared...." He chocked back a sob. He was still in battle, he couldn't just break down right there.

"It's okay, Frisk and the others are doing a nice job distracting that dog." Ryan seemed to have read his mind, as he turned to make sure Doggo would be distracted as long as possible.

"You know, we can always just stand in front of you, you know? That way, you won't see the attacks." Sophie suggested.

 _That's the last thing I need._ He thought to himself, before shaking that thought away. "No... It's okay. I can do it myself..." He said as he rubbed his tears away.

"Sure, we'll just stand beside you, okay?" Angela comforted.

Doggo had enough of the distractions, he grabbed his dagger and prepared for another swing. Ethan's body tensed up.

 _"Ethan,"_ Sophie whispered. _"It's okay to be scared."_

 _"Bravery isn't having no fear, it's facing your fears."_ Angela added, holding his hand.

The knife came again. Ethan's tears began to flow again. His fists tightened, one of his hands almost crushing Angela's.

He felt nothing.

"...." Doggo said nothing, seemingly suspicious about the sudden lack of movement.

_"Doggo can't seem to find anything."_

Frisk didn't wait further. They grabbed the stuck they've been carrying around the entire journey and thew it at the dog. Immediately, his head followed the stick's movements.

"HUH?!!! A FUN STUCK APPEARS!" Doggo yelled, running after the stick.

" _Doggo loves fetch!"_

Frisk played fetch with Doggo for a while, before finally sparing him.

They were back in front of the sentry station. Doggo looking around the place in suspicion.

"A stick appeared out of nowhere, then disappeared. Was it a ghost stick? Did I just return it to the afterlife?" He growled to himself.

"I need some dog treats to think about this." He said as he sunk he head back into the sentry station.

Ethan collapsed to the ground right after. The pain from all those attacks finally kicking in. Monster attacks were brutal. It didn't help matters that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"You need to heal." Hannah declared, searching through her pockets again.

She couldn't find anything. Everyone checked their pockets again. No one had anything that could heal him either.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." Ethan reassured, trying to get back on his feet but failing miserably. He tried to ease matters by wiping whatever tears were still on his face, but it didn't do much.

Hannah studied his injuries. The magic attacks didn't seem to do a lot to his body, other than a few scrapes and cuts, yet he felt exhausted.

"Oh dear," Hannah mumbled, trying to pull him up. "Maybe we can go back to the box and.... What the?!"

Ethan almost fell again by the sudden yell, but the surprise he got himself made him fall back anyways. Hannah's body was glowing green, like how she did during battle. Looking at his body, he noticed the wounds were glowing green as well, before disappearing altogether.

He felt his strength get back to his body, and the awful feeling in his head ease up, but he was still confused.

"Hannah, did you... Just healed me?!" He asked, confused as ever.

"I... I don't know! I just touched you and then I started glowing and then _your_ body started glowing and then.... Wait. You feel okay now?"

"Um... Yeah?" Ethan replied, getting to his feet and moving around. "I feel completely fine!"

"Hannah's a party healer." Ryan joked. Hannah snorted as she rubbed her hands on her apron.

"Well, I guess we should keep going then?" Chase asked. Everyone nodded as they continued on their journey.

While walking, Ethan absentmindedly reached to his neck, expecting to feel his bandana on his neck as always. The feeling of dread rising up as he remembered he left it in the box quite some distance behind. Shacking the feeling away, he ran forward to lead the group. But a voice continued to echo in his mind, and he found some comfort in it.

_"There, a special little bandana for my brave little boy, do you like it?"_

_"I love it mom!"_

~~•~--•--~•~~

While Ethan was walking at the front of the group with the rest, Chase lagged behind and dragged Ryan with him.

"Hey, I know I'm new compared to you guys, but ya mind explaining why Ethan's afraid of knives?" He asked while paying attention not to let Ethan or the others notice.

"Oh, you mean just now?" Ryan replied, making sure no one else was listening. 

"His mom died from a knife attack. We never really said it cause it seems he finally left it behind. Sorry bout that."

Chase nodded while awkwardly scratching the back of his head, feeling as if he shouldn't have known that. "It's okay. Geez, I seriously need to start understanding you guys and your dark backstories if I want to keep you guys alive at this point."

Ryan chuckled. "We can always fill you in a bit later on the details."

"Hey, guys!" Ethan called, his enthusiastic spirit seemingly back to normal. "Come here! There's a frozen lake!"

The two of them rolled their eyes before running up to join their friends.


	11. Nyeh heh heh!

Chase almost crashed into a sign.

Keyword is almost. Instead, he landed flat on his face (again) onto cold, hard ice and skidded across the frozen lake. He could hear Ethan laughing from a distance before a yelp and the sound of something falling to the ground, followed by Angela laughing louder.

Hannah came over to pull him up, chuckling from his show of embarrassment. "I don't think your boots are going to last long if you're gonna be skating like that."

"Don't worry about him, Anna, he can't skate even if his life depended on it." Ryan commented as he half-slid across the lake on his school shoes, stopping at the sign Chase almost crashed into at the middle of the lake. (Don't ask, we don't know how that happened either)

"North, ice. South, ice. West, ice." He read. "East, Snowdin Town.... And ice"

"Well," Chase carefully walked off the frozen lake, careful not to slip and fall. "I'm guessing Snowdin Town is where we're heading to, right?"

"I'll bet." Angela commented while somehow skating across the lake in her ballet shoes, completely ignoring the laws of physics.

"Can we stay here for a while? I like skating." Sophie requested. She was too, like Angela, making a big show of ice-skating on the lake despite wearing coth shoes that were definitely not made for skating. Even if Chase could skate (which as Ryan said, was just another word for impossible), his cowboy boots would not survive long.

Chase scouted the place, making sure that neither skeleton brothers were anywhere nearby, before his eyes wandered towards the two paths beside the lake, one going north and the other heading east.

"I guess we can mess around here for a while," Chase reported. "Or at least until either of those skeletons come around."

"I'm gonna go check out whatever's at the north first," He added, pointing towards the direction. "Anyone want to follow?"

"Me!" Frisk called, sliding across the ice towards Chase. Everyone else continued skating.

Making a mental note to learn how to skate after getting the heck out of this insane mountain, Chase took Frisk's hand and they both headed north.

The path to the north lead to a dead end, with the only thing there other than snow being a snowman that stood right in the middle of the path.

A voice appeared out of nowhere. "Hello," It spoke.

Chase was rather startled by the introduction, while Frisk didn't seem very fazed. Looking around, he narrowed his eyes on the snowman suspiciously.

"I am a snowman," the snowman standing in front of them didn't move its mouth, yet both Chase and Frisk could hear it clearly. "I want to see the world... But I cannot move."

"If you would be so kind, travellers, please.... Take a piece of me and take it very far away." It requested. Chase raised an eyebrow, but Frisk simply nodded in agreement.

"Thank you... And good luck!" The snowman said as Frisk gingerly took a small piece of snow from the snowman and into their pocket. Chase smiled at the snowman before the two of them headed back to the lake.

When they got back, the two of them were greeted by some loud cheering, not directed to them, though.

Angela was making a scene skating around the lake while dragging Ethan along with her, who although had been skating since forever (according to him), was trying his best not to fall again. Sophie was at the back following the two of them, while Ryan and Hannah cheered at the side.

"Just because I can dance doesn't mean I can figure skate!" Ethan complained while almost losing his balance.

"Same thing!" Angela simply replied, twirling around like she was doing her ballet practices on ice and more or less catapulting Ethan off the lake.

"No it's not!" Ethan yelled, obviously tired of being pulled across the lake multiple times. Sophie skated up to him and pulled him back in again, earning her a groan of frustration from him and some more cheering from Ryan and Hannah.

"Hey, Ethan!" Ryan yelled from the side, rather enjoying the performance. "Didn't you say moving around will help warm things up?"

"You know what I mean!" He yelled back before being pulled into the lake again.

"Um, guys?" Hannah called for the group, who all turned to pay attention to her. She was looking her right, which was the path leading to Doggo's sentry station.

At the side of the path stood the short and cubby skeleton Sans, who always reminded Chase a bit of Winnie the Pooh. He stood there with his permanent smile and shrugged, offering the group to come closer.

"hey, here's something important to remember," Sans said once everyone came to him. "my brother has a very special attack. if you see a blue attack, don't move and it won't hurt you."

"Would've been handier earlier." Ethan grumbled. Chase silently agreed with him. If Sans had warned them just a few minutes ago they might've just avoided Ethan's breakdown.

Either Sans didn't hear Ethan's complain, or he chose to ignore it. "here's an easy way to keep it in mind. imagine a stop sign. when you see a stop sign, you stop, right?"

"stop signs are red, so imagine a blue stop sign instead. simple, right? when fighting, think about blue stop signs."

Chase tried to conjure up an image of a blue stop sign, but his imagination failed him. Anyways, the group decided it was about time to get going, perhaps they could make it to Snowdin Town by the evening if they were lucky, and hopefully find somewhere to rest.

They headed east. The group skidded into a halt upon seeing Papyrus yelling at Sans from a small distance, a patch of ground devoid of snow in front of them.

Wait, wasn't Sans standing behind them earlier? Chase turned behind him and found the spot Sans was at earlier empty. He decided not to question it. If boxes could teleport, so could a short skeleton.

"YOU'RE SO LAZY!!!" Papyrus yelled. Instinctively, Chase reached to his pocket in his jeans where he was holding his piston at. Though it was empty, he figured if anything it might give anyone a good scare and enough time to run.

Everyone shrunk behind Chase as Papyrus went on scolding Sans. One of the things about being the oldest is that you automatically become the leader and the protector of the group, which Chase couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"YOU WERE NAPPING ALL NIGHT!!" Papyrus continued yelling, seemingly not paying attention to the team.

"i think that's called sleeping." Sans replied, still grinning despite all the yelling.

"EXCUSES, EXCUSES!" Papyrus yelled back, before turned around and laying his eyes on the humans.

"OH-HO! THE HUMANS ARRIVE!" He spoke, unaware of how loud his voice was. "IN ORDER TO TOP YOU ALL, MY BROTHER AND I HAVE CREATED SOME PUZZLES!"

"Great," Angela muttered. "Just what we need, puzzles."

"I THINK YOU'LL FIND THIS ONE... QUITE _SHOCKING_!" Papyrus continued. Chase elected to ignore the pun. "FOR YOU SEE, THIS IS THE INVISIBLE ELECTRICITY MAZE!!! WHEN YOU TOUCH THE WALLS OF THE MAZE, THESE ORBS WILL ADMINISTER A HEARTY ZAP!!" He explained while holding up a handful of small blue orbs.

Chase was starting to doubt the chances of him and his friends getting out of the mountain alive. An invisible maze that gives out electricity? No thanks.

"SOUND LIKE FUN?" Papyrus asked. "BECAUSE THE AMOUNT OF FUN YOU ALL WILL PROBABLY HAVE... IS ACTUALLY RATHER SMALL I THINK."

"See, he gets it." Ethan leaned towards the team and commented. It didn't take a rocket scientist to agree with him.

"OK, YOU CAN GO AHEAD NOW."

The group stood in silence for a moment, none of them daring to step into the maze. Of course no one did, who would want to get shocked by electricity?

"Guys," Ryan spoke, drawing the group's attention to him. "I think Papyrus will be the one to get shocked if we stepped wrongly."

"What do you mean?" Hannah asked.

Ryan gestured towards Papyrus, who was still holding the handful of orbs. "He forgot to give those things to us."

"Well, anyone wants to test that out?" Chase asked.

Cautiously, Frisk took a step into the maze. Sure enough, with a loud _"zap!!"_ Papyrus jumped and dropped a few of the orbs, his cape smoking a little.

"SANS!!! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" He yelled, glaring at Sans.

"i think the humans have to hold the orbs."

"OH, OKAY." Papyrus said, before picking up some of the orbs he dropped and heading to give each kid in the team one of the orbs. Chase grimaced internally, knowing that their chance to get out of the maze without going through certain pain was done for.

However, much to the group's surprise, Papyrus for whatever reason chose to walk through the maze to get to them. Chase managed to stifle his laugh, glad to know that at least they had a chance. Papyrus seemed completely oblivious to the fact he just gave away his puzzle though, and rather happily arrived at their side of the maze.

"HOLD THESE PLEASE!" He requested, giving each of them a blue orb to hold. It looked like it was made of plastic, and was transparent enough so that Chase could see a small machinery inside.

When he looked back up, he noticed that Papyrus was already at the other side of the maze, leaving behind him a clear pathway to follow. "OKAY, TRY NOW!"

Chase felt a light shove from behind him. Turning around he saw Angela staring at him. "You first."

He sighed. Another downside of being the oldest: you're expected to go first in an invisible electricity maze. "Follow me," Chase ordered as he cautiously stepped into the maze, careful to follow the footsteps Papyrus left. The others followed tightly behind him, eager to get out of the maze as soon as possible.

It didn't take long before everyone was safely out and lacking any electricity-induced injuries. Papyrus's face changed into complete amazement.

"INCREDIBLE, YOU SLIPPERY SNAILS!" Papyrus wowed. "YOU ALL SOLVED IT SO EASILY.... TOO EASILY!"

"HOWEVER, THE NEXT PUZZLE WILL NOT BE EASY! IT IS DESIGNED BY MY BROTHER, SANS! YOU WILL SURELY BE CONFOUNDED! I KNOW I AM!"

"Maybe he'll go easy on us?" Sophie asked hopefully. Chase wanted to agree with her, perhaps Sans would cut them some slack. After all, he seriously doubted that Sans would put a lot of effort into making a puzzle.

"NYEH HEH HEH!!" He cackled his signature laugh again, being storming off east, the direction the group was heading.

Sans didn't bother to follow his brother. The group walked up to him, in case he had anything to say.

"hey, thanks. my brother seems to be having fun." He thanked. "by the way, did you see the weird outfit he's wearing? we made that a few weeks ago for a costume party."

"he hasn't worn anything else since, keeps calling it his 'battle body'. man, isn't my brother cool?"

"Um, yeah." Hannah agreed, probably out of kindness. The rest of them nodded their heads politely.

They decided to continue on. Just a short walk ahead, they saw what looked like an ice cream stand in the middle of the snowy weather.

"Hey, ice cream!" Ethan cheered.

"It's way too cold for ice cream Ethan." Angela commented, her normally tanned face started to turn a bit pink from the cold. Considering how cold Chase himself was wearing jeans and a polo shirt, he definitely didn't want to be in Angela's shoes.

The ice cream cart was sitting there in the cold, lacking any customers. Beside it was a rabbit with light blue fur wearing a yellow and red outfit leaning on the cart frowning.

"I don't understand why these aren't selling..." The rabbit grumbled. Upon inspection, Chase found that the entire cart was full of ice cream. "It's the perfect weather for something cold...."

 _"I beg to differ."_ Angela complained rather quietly.

The rabbit seemed to notice the group, however. He raised his head, and upon laying his eyes on the kids his eyes lit up. "Oh! Customers!"

"Hello!" He greeted. "Would you like some nicecream? It's the frozen treat that warms your heart! Now just 15G!"

Everyone checked their pockets. Chase himself had more than enough gold to buy half a dozen from fighting a bunch of monsters.

Oh well, who cares about the logic of eating ice cream in the freezing weather? Everyone was clean out of snacks to heal themselves. "Two nicecreams, please." Chase asked the rabbit.

Everyone asked for a few nicecreams themselves. Not long after, half the cart was empty, which seemed to had lifted the rabbit's spirits a lot.

"Here you go kids! Have a super-duper day!"

"Thank you!" Hannah said as she shoved a few of the ice creams into her pocket, leaving one to eat at the spot.

"Are our healing items ready?" Chase asked the group.

"Check!"

"And no one's dead yet?"

"Check!"

"Okay, let's get moving."

~~•~--•--~•~~

"FIGHT ME!" Ethan yelled while tackling a large snowball, only to fall on the ground while Frisk shoved it away from him.

"That ball is mine!" Angela yelled, stepping over Ethan and chasing after Frisk.

"Jerry's right, you guys suck at this." Ryan sighed, standing a safe distance away from the chaos.

"Anarchy." Sophie commented, like Ryan, she was too smartly standing a safe distance away.

"We do not mention Jerry!" Chase yelled back, chasing after Frisk and Angela, before somehow slipping (again) and falling onto his face.

"Are you okay?" Hannah asked, coming to pull him up again. In response, he swore really loudly, and with some pretty vulgar words that I rather not mention in a book like this.

By the time Chase was done swearing and got onto his feet, Frisk was cheering while Ethan and Angela were groaning loudly. Frisk managed to shove the large snowball into a hole the other side of the obstacle course, and a red flag rose up.

Frisk pulled out a small letter stuck on top of the red flag. Pulling it down, they opened it and read the note inside.

"Bravery. Justice. Integrity. Kindness.   
Perseverance. Patience. Using these, you were able to win at Ball Game."

"Hah, more like brute force." Ethan grumbled, rubbing his elbow where he fell earlier. Frisk turned to face him and stuck their tongue out.

"There's money inside." Frisk said as they stuck their hands in the envelope and fished out a bunch of coins. After some time counting, they found out they got a prize of 50G.

Frisk decided to spilt the money between the seven of them. They all got 7G with one coin left afterwards.

"You can keep the last coin, Frisk." Angela said as she picked up said coin and placed it in Frisk's hands. "You won the game, it's only fair if you got it."

Frisk grinned in pride, happy to boast they were the one to finish the ball game. Yet, before anyone else had the time to decide what to do next, the group heard Papyrus's loud cackling from a distance.

"Oh well," Chase sighed. "Fun time's over, let's go check what puzzle did Sans prepare for us."


	12. Snowdin Town

"CIVILIZATION!" Angela cheered as the group got off the hanging bridge after just watching Papyrus pull out his gauntlet of deadly terror. Luckily, he decided against activativng it, and left the group free to continue on.

The other side of the bridge was a lovely town decorated in a Christmas mood. Beside the pathway leading to the town stood a sign decorated with colourful Christmas lights. On it were the words "Welcome to Snowdin Town!" In a friendly writing.

Nearby were two rather identical looking wooden houses. On one of them hung a sign with the words "Shop" on it while the other wrote "Inn". Right outside the inn, much to Ethan and Ryan's delight, was a box that looked exactly like the one they encountered somewhere in the morning.

"My gloves! My bandana!" Ethan cheered as he ran to the box, ready to take back his equipment. While everyone was paying attention to the box, Frisk sunk their hands into the warm light shining beside it.

_"The sight of such a friendly town fills you with determination."_

By the time Frisk turned their attention towards the box, Ethan was already halfway opening it. Inside the box, was Ryan's donut and Ethan's gloves, but no bandana.

"Where my bandana?" Ethan asked, fumbling around the box hoping to find it. It wouldn't be long before his confusion turned into fear.

"Did you guys see it?"

"It couldn't have gone anywhere!"

"Then where is it?!"

"Did it get lost?"

"How can it? The donut and the gloves are in there!"

"Someone might've took it."

"Then where can we find it?!"

"Guys, seriously! I can't lose it! My mom gave me that!"

"Oh dear," A voice interrupted the panicked discussion. Turning behind them, the door to the inn was open, standing at the entrance was a bunny in a nice dress. "Are you the kids the ones who had the orange bandana?"

"Yeah," Ethan replied. "Do you know where is it, Miss?"

"It's right here." She said as she pulled out Ethan's bandana, washed up and perfectly clean.

"My little rascal over there fished it out of the box this morning and started doodling over it." The lady bunny gestured to a small bunny with white fur sitting over the counter in the inn. "I tried to wash off the stains as best as I could, hope you don't mind it."

Ethan's eyes lit up as the bunny handed back his bandana, which aside from a very faint drawn on abbs, was a lot more cleaner than before. "Thanks Miss!" He said as he tied it back in his neck, finally feeling just a bit more comfortable since the start of Snowdin Forest.

"Wait, Miss, are you the owner of the inn?" Chase asked.

"Yup!" The lady answered. "Welcome to Snowed Inn! Snowdin's premiere hotel!"

Chase grinned. A nice hotel to stay in: just what they needed. "How much is it for a night?"

"Oh, it's 80G for a night per room. Are you kids interested in staying over?"

Chase checked his pockets. They definitely had enough money to stay a night. "Is there room for seven?"

"You kids are just in luck! We have two empty rooms right now, just enough for seven of you."

"Well, is it okay if we come back a little later? We want to explore the town for a while first." Angela said.

"Of course! Come back anytime."

They walked along the town for a while. Eventually, they reached a part of the town where a Christmas tree stood.

"Awful teens tormented a monster by decorating it's tree-like horns," A monster that resembled a polar bear explained while arranging some presents under the tree. "So we started giving the monster presents to make it feel better. Now it's a tradition to put presents under a decorated tree."

"Isn't it November right now?" Ryan asked, which was true. Above the underground, the leaves were turning red and the weather was getting chilly, but it was nowhere near Christmas yet.

"Well, you probably couldn't tell if you're underground and it snows constantly, right?" Angela thought.

"If only we could have Christmas everyday." Sophie sighed.

"No thank you," Ethan brushed some snow off his head. "I'm having enough of this cold."

At the other side of the Christmas tree was a small yellow lizard-like monster wearing a striped sweater. Despite seemingly lacking any arms, he greeted the group rather enthusiastically.

"Yo! You guys are kids too, right?" He asked, his tail wagging a bit and sending some snow flying. "I can tell cause you guys are wearing striped shirts."

Everyone looked at each other's clothes for a moment. It was true, everyone's clothing had at least a stripe on it one way or another, which amused them. "Huh," Angela thought. "Funny coincidence."

"Honestly, I think our entire wardrobe is just filled with striped shirts at this point." Ryan commented. "I don't think we have anything that doesn't have stripes on it."

"What about your old shirt-"

"We do not talk about my old shirt." Ryan cutted Ethan off mid sentencce.

Continuing to explore the town, the group passed by a bar. On the sign of the bar were some large words writing "Grillby's"

"Wanna go in?" Chase asked the group.

"It looks warm inside. Why not?" Angela responded while rubbing her shoulders again to try and keep herself warm. She really hoped the entire underground wouldn't just be snow.

They walked up to the door and pushed it open. A blast of warm air blew out, giving everyone a sense of relief after walking through snow for the entire day. Inside the bar were a lot more customers than they thought. On one side was a bunny laying his head on the table, looking rather wiped out. Behind that table was a weird plant monster with a gigantic mouth occupying its face. On the other side was the entire Snowdin Canine Unit, which consisted of all the dogs that attacked the team for most of the day. Ethan took a few steps back upon noticing Doggo's presence.

At the bar counter were two bird monsters talking and a monster who looked like he was made completely of fire wiping a glass. Chase assumed he was Grillby, considering there was no one else working in the bar from what they could see.

After some talking and hanging around in the warm bar, they got out and went on walking around town.

To the north of the town were some residence areas, where some kids were playing tag (or something). Nearby was a large wolf-like monster picking up huge blocks of ice and throwing it into the water, carrying it downstream.

Further east was the town's library (though the sign spelt it as "libarby") and a nice two floored bouse decorated with Christmas lights and a pirate flag. Two mailboxes stood beside it, one overflowing with junk mail, and one completely empty labeled "Papyrus".

"I'm guessing that's their house, right?" Angela stared up at the well-decorated home.

"It looks so nice," Hannah commented.

"Ya know, I thought it would've been a bit more weirder or Halloween-like" Ethan joked.

"Or maybe like a pirate ship." Ryan added.

"That pirate flag is close enough." Chase said.

The end of the town was at the skeleton brothers' house. Afterwards, the group turned around and headed back to the inn.

"Here's the keys to your rooms." The bunny lady said while handing them said keys. "Have a nice stay!"

The lady was right when she meant the two rooms were just enough for the seven of them. The first room only had a single bed, which was just enough for two people to squeeze in on. The second room was better, the bed made for three people to sleep in. But it should be able to accommodate 5 people if they wanted.

Chase split the group into two for the rooms. Frisk and Hannah took the smaller room, because he didn't trust either Sophie or Ryan enough to keep Frisk out of trouble and that he doubted that Ethan, Angela or himself would've fitted with them on the small bed. Everyone else had to share the large bed in the second room.

Thankfully, the inn was kind enough to provide extra pillows, which spared everyone from the need of sharing pillows as well. Ryan's watch claimed that it was already 8pm, making it the second day in the underground.

As Hannah and Frisk went into the next room for bed, the rest of them prepared to sleep as well. After spending the entire day going through puzzle after puzzle and numerous encounters with the royal guard, it was time for them to take a good rest.

Angela and Chase chose the sides, because if anyone else did they'd most likely fall off the bed (especially Ethan, Angela added). Sophie was beside Angela, Ryan in the middle and Ethan beside Chase.

"Goodnight, guys."

"Goodnight."

~~•~--•--~•~~

The group woke up early in the morning. (Thankfully, lacking anymore arguments from Angela and Ethan, unlike the previous morning.) They checked out, had a breakfast of cinnamon buns and bisicles they brought from the shop beside the inn. The owner of the shop is the brother of the innkeeper, and was friendly to hold a conversation with. Afterwards, they headed east, past Sans and Papyrus's house, ready to continue their journey out the underground.

They've only walked a short distance before it started getting foggy. Walking further, the fog got thicker with every step until it was almost impossible to see in front of them.

"Is this supposed to be normal?" Angela thought aloud.

"I can't see anything!" Sophie complained.

Chase squinted his eyes at the direction in front of them. "Guys... There's someone standing in the fog."

The fog cleared just a little bit, enough to barely make out the silhouette in the distance. Slowly, it became obvious the figure standing in front of them was none other than Papyrus, prompting the group to huddle tightly together.

"HUMANS." Papyrus spoke, his voice louder than even the usual yelling from the fact no one was making a noise. "ALLOW ME TO TALK ABOUT SOME COMPLEX FEELINGS."

"FEELINGS LIKE, THE JOY OF FINDING ANOTHER PASTA LOVER. THE ADMIRATION FOR ANOTHER'S PUZZLE-SOLVING SKILLS. THE DESIRE TO HAVE A COOL, SMART PERSON TO THINK YOU'RE COOL."

"THESE FEELINGS, THEY MUST BE WHAT YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW! I CAN HARDLY IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO FEEL THAT WAY. AFTER ALL, I _AM_ VERY GREAT."

Angela rolled her eyes. _"What about no?"_ She muttered.

"Well, he's right about one thing." Ethan grinned. "I _am_ cool."

"I beg to differ."

"Then beg."

"Guys," Chase turned to face the two of them. "Not now."

"I DON'T EVER WONDER WHAT HAVING LOTS OF FRIENDS IS LIKE. I PITY YOU... LONELY HUMANS...."

"Well, _lonely_ wouldn't be what I would describe the situation we're in right now." Ryan chuckled. "There's literally seven of us over here."

"WORRY NOT! YOU SHALL BE LONELY NO LONGER! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE YOUR..." His voice trailed off.

"Oh boy," Chase sighed, urging the rest of the group to get behind him. "Here we go again."

"NO.... NO, THIS IS ALL WRONG! I CAN'T BE YOUR FRIEND! YOU ALL ARE HUMANS! I MUST CAPTURE YOU! THEN, I CAN FULFILL MY LIFELONG DREAM!!!

"POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS! THAT'S PAPYRUS! THE NEWEST MEMBER... OF THE ROYAL GUARD!"

The background flickered black, and everyone huddled close as they started the battle with Papyrus.


	13. Bonetrousle

_"Papyrus blocks the way!"_

Papyrus stood in front of them, his red scarf fluttering through the air despite the lack of wind. Despite his goofy attitude, something told the group that he wasn't gonna put up an easy fight.

Frisk spared the skeleton, hoping he might just decide fighting wasn't worth the trouble and end the battle.

That wasn't the case though. "SO, YOU WON'T FIGHT..." He muttered.

"THEN, LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE MY FABLED 'BLUE ATTACK'!" Papyrus declared, raising his arm up while his glove glowed a bright cyan.

"Blue stop signs, blue stop signs..." H  
Someone muttered as Papyrus sent a furry of blue bones at the group, which all passed through them harmlessly.

The bone attack was over quick, much to their relief. Suddenly, Papyrus's hands glowed bark blue, and he slammed his arms in a downwards motion. Everyone dropped to the ground and got hit by a regular attack except for Angela, who through enough experience prior nimbly jumped out of the way.

"What the ouch?!" Ethan yelped, getting up after a quick moment of confusion.

"Are we glowing blue?" Chase thought aloud. Everyone exchanged looks with each other. True enough, everyone's body and souls were glowing a dark blue aura that matched Angela's glow most of the time in battle.

"YOU'RE BLUE NOW." Papyrus explained. "THAT'S MY ATTACK!"

_"You're blue now."_

"Wait wait wait wait," Hannah thought. "Why are we blue, and why are we stuck on the ground?"

"Welcome to my world." Angela grumbled. "For whatever reason, gravity goes bonkers for me in battle and the only way I can dodge is by jumping."

"So you're telling me, Sophie's power is to not get hurt staying still, mine is to not get hurt while moving, and yours is jumping." Ethan laughed. "Cause that's hilarious and horrible at the same time."

"Feel my pain for once, won't ya?"

"But Papyrus made his arm go down, and everyone fell down." Frisk thought. "Is he controlling us?"

"Gravity manipulation," Ryan grumbled. "Figures. Why not Sans? Warn us about the magic that half the population in Snowdin can summon, but not one that only your brother can do."

Shaking his head, Chase pressed the MERCY button. "Great, time to remember two different moves now. By the time we get the heck out of this mountain we'd become pro fighters already."

"BEHOLD!" Papyrus yelled as he sent multiple towering bones at them. With the condition the group was in, they could only jump.

The last bone was significantly taller than the previous ones, easily towering even Papyrus himself.

"HOW ARE WE GONNA DODGE THAT ONE?!" Ethan complained half-yelling.

"Just jump!" Angela yelled back. "Will yourself to stay floating! It works!"

After that, she leapt upwards, jumping so high it was rather incredible. She floated on the air for a split moment, before landing back safely on the group the other side of the obstacle.

The others didn't have time to question Angela's reality-breaking power, and simply followed her lead. Soon enough, everyone was safe at the other side of the attack.

_"Papyrus is cackling"_

"HOW HIGH CAN YOU JUMP?" Papyrus asked while sending even more bones at them, some almost twice the height of the attacks earlier. Surprisingly, despite Angela claiming gravity was going hard on her, her ability of jumping inhumanely high seemed to have no bounds. While the others could barely get past the obstacles, Angela could leap over them with no problem at all.

"No fair! You got practice!" Ethan complained as he dropped to the ground with a hard landing.

"FEEL MY PAIN!" Angela yelled as she cleared another set of bones.

_"Papyrus is trying to play it cool."_

"YEAH! DON'T MAKE ME USE MY _SPECIAL ATTACK_!" Papyrus continued yelling, his hands glowing a brighter blue than earlier.

"What _special attack_?!" Angela complained while leaping over more of the bones. "This guy has light blue attacks and gravity manipulation, what do you mean by _special attack_?!!"

"Not light blue, cyan!" Ryan corrected after landing in the ground.

"Light blue!"

"Not the time guys!" Chase snapped at the both of them after he finally cleared the last attack.

The battle dragged on, increasing with difficulty with every turn. Somewhere along the line, Papyrus started sending piles of bones to jump over and blue bones into the mix. By the time he was starting to look worn out, everyone in the group except Angela had already used up half of their snacks.

"BEHOLD, MY SPECIAL ATTACK!" Papyrus exclaimed. Rather surprisingly though, the attack never came.

"Bark bark!" A dog was chewing on a bone beside Papyrus, seemingly not paying attention to him whatsoever.

"WHAT THE HECK? THAT'S MY SPECIAL ATTACK"

"HEY! YOU STUPID DOG!" Papyrus yelled at the canine. "DO YOU HEAR ME? STOP MUNCHING ON THAT BONE!"

The dog raised its head to look at Papyrus, bone still in its mouth. Slowly, it inched away way from him, carrying the bone with it.

"HEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!" Papyrus stomped his foot." COME BACK HERE WITH MY SPECIAL ATTACK!"

The dog paid Papyrus no attention. Instead, it bolted the opposite direction away from him, taking Papyrus's special attack with it.

"..."

"OH WELL," Papyrus sighed. "I'LL JUST USE A REALLY COOL NORMAL ATTACK."

 _"All hail the small white dog."_ Ryan grinned.

"It looked a bit like Toby." Sophie commented.

"What do you know? It kinda does." Ethan thought. A few years ago, somewhere around the time Ryan first came to the orphanage outside the mountain, Ethan, Sophie and Angela adopted a small white dog named Toby. According to the three of them, Toby the dog disappeared one day without any explanation whatsoever.

_"Papyrus is getting ready for a regular attack."_

Papyrus groaned in annoyance after the robbery of his special attack. "HERE'S AN ABSOLUTELY NORMAL ATTACK." He said as he sent a wave of bones again.

Perhaps _normal_ was an understatement, or maybe a sarcastic joke. Because whatever attack Papyrus sent on them probably wasn't normal by human standards. The attack started out relatively normal, until the bones were moving at them at great speed. Then they had to jump over a pile of bones that spelt out "Cool Dude" and a bone in a skateboard.

The attack that takes the cake however, was a gigantic pile of bones spanning at least the size of half a football field with a colossal bone the size of a small building standing at the back.

"I take it back when I first asked 'how are we gonna jump over that'." Ethan stared wide-eyed at the obstacle. "HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO JUMP OVER THAT?!!!"

Even Angela hesitated for once. But when she jumped, she was so high up the air that she looked like a spot floating in the middle of nowhere. The others had no time to lose either, and followed her lead again.

"Are you sure you don't manipulate gravity yourself?!" Ryan asked when he dropped to the floor with the obstacle behind him. "Because that was scary!"

"There's another bone!" Sophie called.

In front of the group was a miniature bone inching slowly towards them. They awkwardly stepped over the tiny bone and waited for it to inch off the battle.

Papyrus was completely exhausted after the last attack, clear by the fact he was bending over with his hands on his kneecaps huffing. "WELL.... *HUFF* IT IS CLEAR THAT.... *HUFF* YOU HUMANS CANNOT DEFEAT ME!! *HUFF* YEAH! I CAN SEE YOU SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS!"

"THEREFORE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ELECT TO GRANT YOU PITY! I WILL SPARE YOU HUMANS! ITS NOW YOUR CHANCE TO ACCEPT MY MERCY."

_"Papyrus is sparing you."_

"Finally," Chase gave a worn-out smile, relieved that the fight was over. Frisk spared Papyrus and they found themselves back at the outskirts of Snowdin Town.

The fog cleared soon enough, revealing that they were standing at the bank of a river. Behind Papyrus was an entrance to some sort of cave made of blue rock. The snow started to melt near the entrance to the cave, leaving puddles around the place. and despite standing quite some distance away, the group could tell that it was a lot more warmer than Snowdin.

"NYOO HOO HOO" Papyrus sobbed. "I CAN'T EVEN STOP SOMEONE AS WEAK AS YOU HUMANS... UNDYNE'S GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME..."

Ethan placed his hand on his chest, his face bearing an insulted expression as he mouthed out the words "seriously?"

"I'LL NEVER JOIN TO ROYAL GUARD... AND... MY FRIEND QUANTITY WILL REMAIN STAGNANT!"

"We can be friends," Hannah offered. "All of us! Then you'll have seven friends!"

"REALLY?" Papyrus asked excitedly. "YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS, WITH ME??? WELL THEN... I GUESS.... I GUESS I CAN MAKE AN ALLOWANCE FOR YOU HUMANS!"

"WOW!" Papyrus cheered. "I HAVE FRIENDS!!! AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS MAKE THEM AWFUL PUZZLES AND FIGHT THEM? YOU TAUGHT ME A LOT, HUMANS." Papyrus thanked. "I HEREBY GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO PASS THROUGH! AND I'LL GIVE YOU DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS TO THE SURFACE."

"CONTINUE FORWARD UNTIL YOU REACH THE END OF THE CAVERN." Papyrus said as he gestured to the cave behind him. "THEN, WHEN YOU REACH THE CAPITAL, CROSS THE BARRIER."

"The barrier?" Sophie asked.

"THAT'S THE MAGICAL SEAL TRAPPING US ALL UNDERGROUND." He explained. "ANYTHING CAN ENTER IT, BUT NOTHING CAN EXIT. EXPECT FOR SOMEONE WITH A POWERFUL SOUL, LIKE HUMANS! THAT'S WHY THE KING WANTS TO ACQUIRE HUMANS, HE WANTS TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH SOUL POWER. THEN US MONSTERS CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE!"

"Oh, that sounds cool." Chase said, thinking in his head how the entire village would react if suddenly a bunch of monsters came out the mountain from nowhere.

"How many human souls does it take to open the barrier?" Ryan asked.

"THE BARRIER IS MADE BY SEVEN HUMAN WIZARDS, SO WE NEED THE POWER OF SEVEN HUMAN SOULS!"

"There's seven of us." Frisk raised their hand.

"EXACTLY!" Papyrus exclaimed. "WITH THE POWER OF ALL OF YOUR SOULS, YOU CAN FREE ALL OF MONSTERKIND!"

Chase thought in his head how the village would react if the seven kids who went missing front he orphanage a few days ago returned from the mountain with a bunch of monsters. The thought was both hilarious and unsettling.

"OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU." The skeleton added. "TO REACH THE EXIT, YOU MUST PASS THROUGH THE KING'S CASTLE. THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS, HE IS.... WELL..." Papyrus's voice trailed off.

"... HE'S A BIG FUZZY PUSHOVER! EVERYBODY LOVES THAT GUY. I AM CERTAIN IF YOU JUST SAY: 'EXCUSE ME, MR DREEMURR, CAN I PLEASE GO HOME?' HE'LL GUIDE YOU RIGHT THROUGH THE BARRIER HIMSELF!"

 _"I'm not so certain about that."_ Ethan leaned towards the group. Hannah and Sophie still had some hopeful light in their eyes.

"ANYWAY!!! THAT'S ENOUGH TALKING!!!" Papyrus declared. "I'LL BE AT HOME BEING A COOL FRIEND! FEEL FREE TO COME BY AND HANG OUT!!!"

"NYEH HEH HEH!" He cackled as he ran pass the group, back to his house in Snowdin Town, leaving the group standing there outside the blue cave.

"Should we get going?" Chase asked, looking at the cave. "I hear water over there, maybe the next stop wouldn't be freezing."

"Can we go back and hang out with Papyrus for a while?" Hannah requested. "I'm tired from all the walking."

"Yeah, can't we Chase? Pleeeeeeeease?" Sophie whined.

"Well," Chase shrugged. "I don't see a reason not to. I'm kinda sick of walking all day. All in hand to hang out with Papyrus say 'aye'."

"Aye!"

"Okay then," Chase grinned. "Let's get going.

They turned around, and followed Papyrus back to his house.


	14. Dating Start!

By the time the group followed Papyrus back to his house, he was already standing beside his mailbox checking for any mail. Upon noticing the approaching humans, his eyes (or eye sockets?) lit up as he turned to face them.

"SO YOU CAME BACK TO SEE ME!" Papyrus beamed, happy to see the group again. "YOU MUST BE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS... I'LL HAVE TO TAKE YOU ALL SOMEPLACE EVERY SPECIAL. A PLACE I LIKE TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME!" He declared.

He walked downtown, and the group followed closely behind him. He walked a long distance towards Grillby's before turning around in a sharp U-turn, prompting the group to follow him back towards his house. He stopped right in front of his house, almost resulting in them bumping into each other.

"BEHOLD," Papyrus gestured proudly to his home. "MY HOUSE!"

"Was it necessary to walk us half the town?" Angela questioned.

Either Papyrus decided to ignore her question or couldn't hear her (which might explain all the yelling), because he enthusiastically entered his home, inviting everyone else to follow him.

The house was surprisingly warm in the inside, considering how everyone probably doubted skeletons can even feel cold. A green couch sat in the middle of the living room, with a television opposite of it. Near the entrance to the house was a large dinning table on which sat a rock on top covered with sprinkles (No one bothered to question it).

To the right of the living room was the kitchen, and to the left were a flight of stairs leading upstairs, probably leading to Sans and Papyrus's rooms.

"WELCOME TO MY HOUSE!" Papyrus greeted. "ENJOY AND TAKE YOUR TIME!"

Both Hannah and Ryan's attention moved towards a thick book sitting on a coffee table beside Papyrus. While Papyrus lead the rest to the kitchen, Ryan picked the book up.

"Quantum Physics 101," Ryan read the title of the book before flipping it open. "Why is there another book inside?"

"1001 Puns to Tickle Your Funny Bone," Hannah fished the smaller book out and read the title. Opening it up, another quantum physics book was inside it. And inside of said book was another joke book.

The two of them exchanged puzzled looks before deciding to put all the books back into each other and leave it alone. "I don't like quantum physics anyways." Ryan added.

Then there was a loud crash, yelling, and barking that made the both of them jump.

"CATCH THAT MEDDLING CANINE!!!" Papyrus shrieked as a small white figure bolted out of the kitchen, across the living room and out the house via the front door with Frisk chasing behind it. Frisk didn't get a chance to catch it as the figure darted away from the house and through the snow towards the rest of the town.

"CURSES!" Papyrus groaned, rubbing his forehead (or is it skull?) in annoyance. A door creaked open upstairs, Sans's head peeked out with a trombone and played a quick tune on it before shutting the door behind him.

"SANS! STOP PLAGUING MY LIFE WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC!!!"

"This trip is gonna be the death of me." Ryan muttered, tugging at his sweater. "Papyrus is gonna give me a heart attack sooner or later with all that yelling."

After more messing around, the group ventured up the stairs and found themselves in front of a door with signs and security tape all over it. Down the hallway was a painting of a bone and what must've been Sans's room.

"THAT'S MY ROOM!" Papyrus gestured to the oddly decorated door. "IF YOU ALL HAVE FINISHED LOOKING AROUND... WE COULD GO IN AND HANG OUT LIKE A BUNCH OF VERY COOL FRIENDS?"

"Sure," Chase said, the rest of the group nodding with agreement. Papyrus opened the door, welcoming everyone to enter before closing the door behind him.

Papyrus's room was pretty neat for a human hunting skeleton, with a bookshelf full of neatly arranged books at one side, a table full of figurines at another, and a computer sitting at the far side of the room. At one corner of the room was a large cardboard box full of bones.

"What's that supposed to be?" Angela asked while staring at the box.

"THOSE ARE THE ATTACKS I USED ON YOU GUYS." Papyrus explained. "GREAT MEMORIES, HUH? SEEMS LIKE IT WAS ONLY YESTERDAY... EVEN THOUGH IT BASICALLY JUST HAPPENED."

"There's a pirate flag in your room." Sophie pointed out to the neatly hung flag on the wall of the room.

"ISN'T IT NEATO?" He beamed proudly at it. "UNDYNE FOUND IT AT THE BAY.... I THINK IT'S FROM THE HUMAN WORLD? NOW, I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING. WHY WOULD A HUMAN FLAG HAVE A COOL SKELETON ON IT? WELL... I HAVE A THEORY. I THINK HUMANS MUST HAVE DESCENDED FROM SKELETONS!!!"

"Close enough," Ryan grinned while rolling his eyes. Some of the kids were deciding between laughing or facepalming.

"Your bed looks really nice," Ethan eyed on the bed decorated to look like a red sports car, obviously jealous of it.

"YOU GUYS CAN SIT ON IT IF YOU WANT." Papyrus offered. "IF I EVER GET TO THE SURFACE, I'D LIKE TO DRIVE DOWN A LONG HIGHWAY, WIND IN MY HAIR.... SUN ON MY SKIN... OF COURSE, THAT'S JUST A DREAM. SO I CRUISE WHILE I SNOOZE."

"SO, UM... IF YOU'VE SEEN EVERYTHING, DO YOU WANNA START HANGING OUT?" He asked while the group got comfortable on Papyrus's bed. At least, as comfortable as seven kids can be while sitting on a single bed. No one was very willing to get off.

"Okay!" Hannah agreed from the middle of the pile of kids.

"LET'S HANG TEN!"

The room flickers between black and it's normal appearance like in battle until everyone finds themselves in a dark background similar to usual battling. Oh well, at least the bed's still with them.

"HERE WE ARE, HANGING OUT!" Papyrus said proudly. "I'VE ACTUALLY NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE." He added muttering.

 _"Now that's what I call lonely."_ Ethan chuckled silently before letting out a _"oof!"_ of pain as both Hannah and Angela elbowed him in the abdomen.

"BUT DON'T WORRY! YOU CAN'T SPELL "PREPARED" WITHOUT SEVERAL LETTERS OF MY NAME!" The skeleton assured while pulling out a small book from behind him. "I SNAGGED AN OFFICIAL HANGOUT GUIDEBOOK FROM THE LIBRARY! WE'RE READY TO HAVE A GREAT TIME!"

 _"Guys, are you completely sure we didn't just fall down that hole, spilt our heads open and are currently in a coma?"_ Chase leaned sideways towards his friends to ask.

"LET'S SEE..." Papyrus continued whatever he was doing, interrupting whatever conversation the kids were having. "STEP ONE... PRESS THE [C] KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD FOR _FRIENDSHIP HUD_."

Almost immediately after reading the instructions, multiple strange panels and charts appear in front of the group. Including a radar, calendar and a population chart. "WOWIE!" Papyrus exclaimed. "I FEEL SO INFORMED!"

 _"That's it. We're definitely hallucinating."_ Angela muttered under her breath.

"I THINK WE'RE READY FOR STEP TWO!" The skeleton declared, flipping through the pages of the booklet. "STEP TWO... ASK THEM TO HANG OUT!"

"AHEM," Papyrus cleared his throat. "HUMANS! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL HANG OUT WITH YOU!"

At least Frisk was having fun with the entire hangout. "Okay," they giggled.

"R-REALLY???? WOWIE!!" Papyrus gushed, stars appearing in his eyes. "I GUESS THAT MEANS IT'S TIME FOR PART THREE!"

He continued flicking through the pages of the book. "STEP THREE: WEAR NICE CLOTHES TO SHOW YOU CARE!"

".... WAIT A SECOND."

" _WEAR CLOTHING_... YOU'RE ALL WEARING CLOTHING RIGHT NOW!" Papyrus exclaimed loudly. (Or, louder than usual) "NOT ONLY THAT... EARLIER TODAY, YOU WERE ALL ALSO WEARING CLOTHING!"

"N.... NO. COULD IT BE??? YOU ALL WANTED TO HANG OUT WITH ME FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!" Papyrus pointed towards the group accusingly. Sophie was trying to hold back her laugher while Frisk was almost falling off the bed laughing. Ryan silently rolled his eyes, maybe shrinking a bit more into the bed as everyone else tried to pull a straight face.

"Is... is he uh, suggesting he's not wearing any clothes right now?" Chase stammered.

"YOU PLANNED IT ALL! YOU ALL ARE WAY BETTER THAN HANGING OUT THAN ME!!" The skeleton gasped. "NOOOOOOOOO!! YOUR FRIENDSHIP POWER!!" He cried as one of the strange bars labeled "friendship" in front of the team rose a bit.

Everyone stood in awkward silence for a moment. "NYEH, NYEH HEH HEH! DON'T THINK YOU'VE BESTED ME YET!" Papyrus laughed desperately. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS NEVER BEEN BEATEN IN HANGING OUT, AND NEVER WILL! I CAN EASILY KEEP UP WITH YOU ALL!!"

"YOU SEE, I, TOO, CAN WEAR CLOTHING! IN FACT, I ALWAYS WEAR MY SPECIAL CLOTHES UNDERNEATH MY REGULAR CLOTHES! JUST IN CASE SOMEONE WANTS TO HANG OUT!"

"I think I need a break," Ryan massaged his forehead while Frisk laughed their head off at Papyrus's odd show. "Killer flowers and talking goats just don't match up to a skeleton that has zero experience with a social life."

"Oh come on Ryan, at least he's nice enough to not kill us." Hannah reassured.

"Alright, what's next after a hangout with a skeleton? An angry spear welding fish?"

"BEHOLD!" Papyrus announced, almost sending half the kids jumping off the bed with his sudden voice. He was wearing something arguably more odd than his battle body consisting of shorts, a pair of sports shoes, a cap and some short sleeved shirt with basketballs as sleeves.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK IF MY SECRET STYLE?" He asked.

"It looks... nice," Hannah complimented. The rest tried to give a straight face and not burst out laughing, which Frisk was trying best not to.

"NO! A GENUINE COMPLIMENT!!" Papyrus gasped as the friendship bar rose more.

"HOWEVER, YOU DON'T TRULY UNDERSTAND THE HIDDEN POWER OF THIS OUTFIT! THEREFORE, WHAT YOU SAID WAS INVALID!" The skeleton concluded as the bar shrank back down just a bit.

"THIS HANGOUT WON'T ESCALATE ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU FIND MY SECRET!" Papyrus declared. "BUT THAT WON'T HAPPEN!"

"Is it your shirt?" Sophie asked, pointing towards the oddly coloured shirt.

"AH, MY SHIRT! IT DIDN'T HAVE THE WORD 'COOL' WHEN I FIRST FOUND IT, BUT I IMPROVED ON IT! IT WORKS FOR ALL SHIRTS! BUT NO, IT'S NOT MY SECRET!"

"What about your shoes?" Chase shrugged.

"THAT'S NOT MY SECRET EITHER! HUMAN SOULS ARE STRINGER THAN MOST MONSTER SOULS, BUT OUR SOLES.... ARE THE SAME."

"Your hat?" Frisk pointed to Papyrus's red hat.

"MY HAT." Papyrus muttered.

"MY HAT! NYEH HEH HEH!" He laughed as he took the hat off, revealing a wrapped present underneath. "WELL THEN, YOU FOUND MY SECRET!

"I GUESS I HAVE NO CHOICE! IT'S A PRESENT! JUST FOR YOU!" The skeleton took the present off his head and handed it to the group.

Frisk took the present and opened it. Inside it was sitting a plate of spaghetti. (How did he not knock it off balancing it on his head?)

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS?" Papyrus asked.

"Spaghetti?" Ethan stared at the meal.

"RIGHT!!" Papyrus said. "BUT OH-SO WRONG! THIS AIN'T ANY PLAIN OL' PASTA! THIS IS AN ARTISAN'S WORK! SILKEN SPAGHETTI, FINELY AGED IN AN OAKEN CAST... THEN COOKED BY ME! MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS! HUMANS!! IT IS TIME TO END THIS!! THERE'S NO WAY THIS CAN GO ANY FURTHER!"

 _"So, he wants us to eat this?"_ Chase asked silently to the group, eying the not-so-appetising looking meal.

 _"It smells bad,"_ Hannah whispered, trying hard to keep a straight face and possibly silently judging Papyrus's cooking skills.

Frisk curiously picked up the fork beside the plate, thinking of taking a bite of the spaghetti despite their face twisting up in disgust.

 _"Frisk, you're_ _so_ _gonna get sick if you eat that."_ Angela warned.

 _"But don't we have to be nice?"_ Sophie cringed slightly at the thought of eating the meal.

Frisk took a deep breath and shoved a bite of the spaghetti into their mouth. Immediately, their face scrunched up in disgust, turning a bit green. Somehow, they managed to swallow it down without throwing up before giving a shakey thumbs up.

"WHAT A PASSIONATE EXPRESSION! YOU MUST REALLY LOVE MY COOKING! AND BY EXTENSION, ME!" Papyrus smiled proudly. Frisk nodded in agreement nervously, relieved he didn't read the expression accurately.

"MAYBE EVEN MORE THAN I DO!" The skeleton wailed suddenly, the friendship bar rising even more before breaking through the bar altogether.

Everyone sat in their position in silence for a moment, before Papyrus cleared his throat.

"HUMANS," He started. "I UNDERSTAND NOW. YOU'RE COMPLETELY OBSESSED WITH ME!"

 _"Should I correct him?"_ Ethan whispered, the response to his answer a smack to his arm by Angela.

"EVERYTHING YOU DO, EVERYTHING YOU SAY, IT'S ALL BEEN FOR MY SAKE. HUMANS, I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY, TOO. IT'S TIME FOR ME TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS."

 _"And I thought me meeting you guys for the first time was awkward."_ Chase joked, prompting Hannah to reflexively jab him with her frying pan.

"IT'S TIME THAT I TOLD YOU. I, PAPYRUS.... HMM...." Papyrus thought for a moment, finding the words to say. "WELL, I'M FLATTERED THAT YOU ALL CARE SO MUCH, BUT MAYBE COOL IT A LITTLE BIT?..."

"YOU ALL ARE VERY NICE PEOPLE, I'M GLAD WE'RE FRIENDS. BUT, I THINK YOU GUYS CAN REACH YOUR MAX POTENTIALS IF YOU LIVE FOR YOUR OWN SAKES, RATHER THAN JUST MINES."

"HMM...." Papyrus muttered. "HEY, I KNOW THE SOLUTION! YOU SHOULD HANG OUT WITH MY BOSS UNDYNE."

"Undyne?" Angela repeated the name, confused.

"YEAH! SHE'S THE COOLEST! I THINK THAT IF YOU GUYS SPREAD YOUR FRIEND-ENERGY OUT MORE, YOU'LL HAVE A MORE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. YEAH!! LET'S BE FRIENDS WITH UNDYNE!!"

"Wait wait wait, who's Undyne?" Chase asked.

"SHE'S THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD! IN FACT, YOU'LL PROBABLY MEET HER LATER, SINCE YOU GUYS ARE HEADING TO WATERFALL AFTER ALL."

"Captain of.... the royal.... guard...." Ryan's voice trailed off, processing the newly found information.

"Um, Papyrus?" Hannah asked tactfully. "Is Undyne, um, gonna try and, um, take our souls?"

"OH, YEAH...." Papyrus trailed off, realising his suggestion probably wasn't the best idea. "SHE MIGHT BE A BIT.... MAD OF YOU GUYS FOR A WHILE, BUT DON'T WORRY! I'LL GET HER TO CALM DOWN, AND IT'LL BE ALL FINE!"

 _"I want to go home,"_ Sophie complained quietly. Everyone's faces switched from relaxed to horror at the thought of an actual royal guard after their souls.

"IT'LL BE FINE!" Papyrus reassured, attempting to change the mood. "BY THE WAY, IF YOU GUYS EVER NEED TO REACH ME, HERE'S MY PHONE NUMBER. YOU CAN CALL ME ANYTIME!" He said as he handed the group a piece of paper with his phone number written on it.

"WELL, GOTTA GO! NYEH HEH HEH!" Papyrus said before exiting his room, leaving the kids sitting on his bed in silence.

"Can we just, stay in Snowdin forever? And never, ever, ever step foot near Waterfall." Angela suggested.

"I don't want to meet the captain of the royal guard," Ryan complained.

"Maybe she'll be as nice as Papyrus?" Hannah thought hopefully, though everyone knew well enough that that was only a mere hope.

"Alright, alright, we're all screwed, we know that." Ethan said as he jumped off Papyrus's car bed. "But I'm pretty sure all of us want to get the heck outta this mountain? And I don't wanna die without getting adopted you know."

"Getting adopted is probably the last thing on my mind right now," Chase grumbled, but got off the bed as well. "But either way Ethan's for once, right. Can we all just run across Waterfall and get over it? Maybe the barrier or whatever the heck Papyrus says is after it."

"Oh alright," Angela groaned as she got off the bed as well, with everyone else following suit. "At least it shouldn't be as cold as Snowdin over there." She said as the group walked out of Sans and Papyrus's house.

"Yeah," Sophie agreed as they walked through the snow out of Snowdin Town. "It's so cold here."

Frisk saw Chara smile a bit at the thought of them about to enter Waterfall. _"I like Waterfall,"_ They said. _"It's really pretty over there."_

"What's in there?" Frisk asked.

 _"You'll see,"_ They simply replied.

The group stopped right at the entrance at the blue cave for a moment, eying at the blue rocks and taking in the sound of rushing water.

"We are _so_ going to die." Ryan declared.

"Just stick together, don't panic and don't do stupid things," Chase commanded. "And we just might get out in one piece."

So, without another word, the group continued their journey. The cold breeze and white scenery of Snowdin Forest left them, and the faint sound of rushing water in Waterfall took their place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya guys! Sorry for the long hiatus, I was on a break for a while. Welcome to the end of the Snowdin ark! Next up on Waterfall: spear welding fish on the lose!


	15. Undyne

"Waterfall is a pretty bad name for a place like this if you ask me." Angela commented as they walked by a couple small waterfalls streaming down beside the dark blue cavern. "Couldn't they give it a better name?"

"Like what?" Ethan snorted. "The Land of Blue Rocks and Water?"

"You know what I mean!"

"Guys, one more word from the both of you and I'm gonna lose it." Chase sighed as they continued walking through the underground. "Just _one minute_ of them not bickering I ask." He muttered to himself.

"Hey, there's some people over there." Ryan pointed out. In a short distance ahead, a couple of monsters were hanging out beside a strange glowing flower.

Walking closer, it became apparent one of the monsters over there was the lizard-like monster kid from earlier in Snowdin and one of them is Sans sitting in a stand. Nearby was an orange monster standing beside said glowing flower.

"Yo!" The monster kid greeted. "Are you guys sneaking out to see her too? Awesome... She's the coolest, right? I wanna be just like her when I grow up..."

"Hey, don't tell my parents I'm here, haha." He added.

"I have a strong feeling that _her_ is Undyne." Angela thought.

"Me too," Sophie added.

They went on to inspect the odd flower next. It was fairly tall and glowed light blue, somewhat resembling a lotus flower.

"This is an echo flower." The orange monster standing beside it explained. "It repeats the last thing it heard, over and over..."

 _"Over and over...."_ The flower suddenly repeated, slightly surprising the group.

"Well, that's creepy." Ethan commented.

_"Well, that's creepy."_

"Heheh, echo."

_"_ _Heheh_ _, echo."_

"Alright Ethan, it's time to shut up." Angela covered Ethan's mouth before he could continue messing around with the flower.

_"Alright Ethan, it's time to shut up."_

While everyone else was having fun with the echo flower, Frisk sank their hand into the warm yellow light glowing beside the flower.

_"The sound of rushing water fills you with determination."_

"Don't you have a sentry station at Snowdin?" Hannah asked as the group approached Sans.

"what? haven't seen a guy with two jobs before?" Sans asked. "fortunately, two jobs means twice as many legally-required breaks."

"i'm going to grillby's. wanna come?" He offered.

"Sure," Chase shrugged, answering for the group.

"well... if you insist... i'll pry myself away from my work..." Sans said as he got up from his stand.

"over here," he said gesturing to the opposite direction towards Grillby's. "i know a shortcut."

In a blink of an eye, the group found themselves and Sans inside of Grillby's.

"What just happened?" Chase asked. Sans only gave a wink as a reply. (How do skeletons even wink?)

"fast shortcut, huh? hey, everyone." The skeleton greeted the people in the bar, who all responded in a series of "Hi, Sans.", "Heya, Sans.", And "Greetings, Sans."

"Hey Sans, weren't you just here for breakfast a few minutes ago?" One of the monsters asked.

"nah, i haven't had breakfast in at least half an hour. you must be thinking of brunch." Sans replied, prompting a chorus of laugher from the entire bar.

"here, get comfy." Sans gestured to the row of empty seats near the counter. Upon sitting down, the seat Frisk sat on emitted a _"_ _plbbbbbbbbbbt_ _"_ sound.

"whoops, watch where you sit down," Sans grinned. "sometimes weirdos put whoopee cushions on the seats." Frisk and Sophie were giggling away while Angela rolled her eyes.

"anyway, let's order." The skeleton continued. "whaddya want, burger or fries?"

"Burgers!" Ethan and Frisk yelled at the same time.

"Fries, please." Hannah requested.

"Ya know what? I'll take fries too." Said Chase.

"Eh," Angela shrugged. "I'm kinda craving burgers right now."

"Fries," Sophie and Ryan said simultaneously.

"hey, burgers sound pretty good." Sans thought. "grillby, we'll have four orders of fries and burg." He ordered to the monster made of fire. Without a word, Grillby walked out of the counter and into the back room, presumably to cook their meals.

"so," Sans attempted to start a conversation. "what do you think of my brother?"

"He's cool, I guess." Angela's hand made a "so-so" gesture.

"Really loud, but he's very nice." Ryan added.

"He's the coolest!" Frisk smiled, kicking their feet on the tall chair.

"of course he's cool, you'd be cool too if you wore that outfit everyday." Sans grinned, obviously pleased to see his brother made some friends. "he'd only take that thing off if he absolutely had to. oh well, at least he washes it. and by that i mean he wears it in the shower."

 _"Alright, I take that back, he isn't cool anymore."_ Angela cringed internally while quietly making that remark, Chase and Ethan nodding in agreement.

"here comes the grub," Sans said as Grillby returned with a tray of food the group ordered, handing the meals to each of them.

"want some ketchup?" He offered while waving a bottle of it in front of the group. The group shook their heads in response.

"more for me," Sans grinned, before downing the bottle of ketchup like water, resulting in odd stares from the kids.

 _"I don't know who's weirder, Papyrus or Sans."_ Chase remarked quietly. The group agreed silently.

"anyway, cool or not, you have to agree papyrus tries real hard." Sans continued. "like how he keeps trying to be part of the royal guard. one day, he went to the house of the head of the royal guard..."

"Undyne?" Hannah asked.

"bingo, kid. i guess papyrus told you guys about her? either way, he went to her house, and begged her to let him be in it."

"of course, she shut the door on him because it was midnight. but the next day, she woke up and saw him still waiting there. seeing his dedication, she decided to give him warrior training. it's, uh, still a work in progress."

They continued eating in silence. Halfway through the meal, Sans cleared his throat.

"oh yeah, i wanted to ask you guys something."

"have you kids ever heard of a talking flower?" He asked.

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing for a moment, a bit shocked of what the skeleton just asked. "Yeah," Chase answered.

"so you know all about it," Sans said. "the echo flower."

"they're all over the marsh." He continued before the rest of the group could correct him. "say something to them, and they'll repeat it over and over... what about it?"

"well, papyrus told me something interesting the other day... sometimes, when no one's around, a flower appears and whispers things to him. flattery, advice, encouragement... predictions."

"weird, huh? someone must be using an echo flower to play a trick on him. keep an eye out, ok? thanks."

Thank God that the kids had already ate most of the food on their plates, because they all had mysteriously lost their appetites all of a sudden. They all sat in silence, hoping the flower Sans mentioned wasn't the same flower they were thinking about.

"welp, that was a long break." Sans got up from his seat. "i can't believe i let ya kids pull me away from work for that long."

"oh, by the way." He added. "i'm flat broke. can you guys foot the bill? it's just 100000G."

"Nope!" Chase declared as he readied to drag everyone out of the bar.

"just kidding," Sans laughed. "grillby, put it on my tab."

Grillby let out a puff of smoke, but didn't say anything as Sans walked out of the bar.

"by the way," He added right before he walked out the door.

".... i was about to say something, but i forgot."

He turned and left the bar, leaving the kids alone wondering just how dangerous was their trip going to be soon enough.

"If I haven't stressed this enough yet, we are _so_ gonna die." Ryan declared again, this time without anyone disagreeing.

"Alright, we're entering the territory of the head of the royal guard who definitely wants our souls, and that godforsaken killer flower's _still_ on the lose, what's new?" Chase groaned. "We're wasting time, I doubt we're gonna get any rest in Waterfall with two killers on our tails, and I'm pretty sure it's at least noon by now. We gotta go."

"Ethan, remind me to pummel your face the moment we get out of this stupid mountain, why the heck did I even agree to go with you guys in the first place?" Angela grumbled.

"I want to go home," Sophie complained again. "This isn't fun anymore."

"Alright, okay, Flowey shmaowey, we're probably gonna die young, Angela's gonna kill me if we live, we get it. Can we just get over this?" Ethan waved his arms, calling attention to himself. "The sooner we get to Waterfall, the sooner we get out. Why don't we just run the whole way? That'll be faster."

"We aren't running, because my feet are getting blisters!" Angela hissed. "There's another question: why did I even think of following you guys, when I'm still in my ballet clothes?"

"What you want me to do?" Ethan shot back defensively. "Carry you all the way?"

"You guys know each other for almost 5 years, and still argue so much!" Hannah sighed.

"I'm going to stop this conversation before one of us kills the other before either Undyne of Flowey does." Chase cutted off. "Yes, the next few hours of our lives are gonna suck, but we all know we have to get going, _now_."

And with that, they walked out of the bar, and back into Waterfall.

~~•~--•--~•~~

Passing by Sans's stand, they arrived at the side of a large waterfall. Rocks fell off from the top of the cliff down to the chasm bellow.

Beside the group was a box similar to the ones they encountered at Snowdin, with a sign standing beside it.

"This is a box," Ryan read. "You can put an item in or take an item out."

"Why would you, though? You can't use the items when they're in the box! Sincerely, a box hater."

"Well, that's an odd sign." Chase commented. "I don't have any stuff to put in though, do you guys?"

"Nah," Ethan shook his head. "I have pockets full of food I think we need."

"Same here," Hannah added.

"Either way," Angela turned her attention to the waterfall. "Are we supposed to get across?"

The waterfall carved out a river in front of them that pummeled down the chasm along with the rocks. Without any bridge in sight, it was obvious anyone who wanted to cross had to wade through the river.

"Well, the deck there doesn't lead anywhere." Ryan said. Beside their side of the waterfall, a wooden deck lead to the lower parts of the waterfall, though it didn't provide a way to get to the other side.

"There's an echo flower there." Sophie pointed out. At the far side of the deck, a single echo flower stood by the cliff side.

"I'm gonna go check it out," Ethan announced. "Wonder what it says." Without another word, he walked down to the deck, towards the flower and leaned close, before shrugging and walking back to join the group.

"Can't hear anything," He said. "Maybe no one went down there in a while."

"So, we're gonna have to cross the river?" Chase asked the rest of the kids. 

"I guess so," Angela sighed. "I wonder how deep it is."

Frisk waded into the water that was just at waist level for them, before calling the rest of the group over.

"It's not that deep!" They reported.

"Yuck, Frisk. You're gonna be soaking after this." Angela shook her head as she got into the river as well. "God, it's cold."

"You're lucky you're not wearing jeans, Angela." Chase stood knee-deep in the water. "Half of us are gonna be dripping water everywhere afterwards."

They made their way across the river, dodging the falling rocks on the way. Halfway through, Frisk waded towards the wall of the waterfall.

"Frisk, what are you doing?" Hannah asked.

"There's something behind the waterfall." They replied pointing towards it.

Angela squinted at the section of the wall Frisk was pointing at. "Hey, you're right." She said as she waded over to where Frisk was.

"What are you guys even doing?" Ryan asked. The mist from the waterfall was clouding up his glasses, and everything looked like a foggy mess.

Cautiously, Angela stuck her hand through a section of the waterfall. Surprisingly, it went through completely. "Hey, I think there's something here!" She called.

She stuck her head over next, and to her surprise, behind the waterfall was a cave barely visible from the outside, lighted up by some glowing mushrooms. 

"Guys, there's a secret room cave thing in here!" She turned around to call for her friends. Behind her, Chase was already standing beside Frisk, while Ethan was half sprinting along with everyone else following closely behind.

"Wow, you're soaking now." Ethan laughed. Angela's hair was soaked with water from poking her head into the waterfall, despite it being in a neat bun for most of the journey.

"Shut up," She shot back, before ducking and walking straight through the waterfall, effectively drenching herself top to bottom while everyone else followed suit.

"Great," Ryan complained in his soaked sweater. "This is gonna take forever to dry."

"This is really cool!" Sophie exclaimed. "It's like a secret room."

"Yeah, it takes a lot to get soaking wet just to get into a secret cave." Ethan remarked, attempting to shake off some of the water all over him.

"Alright, let's get out of here." Chase stood uncomfortably in his soaked jeans and hat.

They ducked out of the waterfall and waded to the other side of the river, completely soaked from top to bottom. 

"Wow, it's freezing." Angela shivered. "I seriously don't know why I thought going out in ballet clothes was a good idea."

Walking on, they found themselves near a huge area of tall grass, easily taller than Frisk themselves. 

"I can't see anything," Frisk complained from the grass. Hannah's head barely peeked out in it.

"Walk near Angela, Frisk." Ethan snorted. Funnily enough, Angela's tutu was effectively pushing the grass away from her, giving her a personal grass-free circle.

"I look ridiculous," Angela complained. "You'd think that after being soaked with water, it'd sag down. But _no_ , it's still sticking up like this. If something was hunting us from up above, I'd be the first target-"

_"Don't talk, hide."_ Chase whispered harshly, ducking down while pulling Angela and Ethan with him, before mentioning the others to do the same. In a distance, they could hear some footsteps coming.

Cautiously, Chase pulled some of the tall grass away, peeking out to see who it is. In a distance in the darkness, a figure wearing full armour was standing there, facing the waterfall the group came from.

The footsteps grew louder, until a familiar figure appeared in Chase's line of sight. Papyrus's.

Everyone was dead silent as Papyrus nervously cleared his throat. "H... HI, UNDYNE!" He greeted. "I'M HERE WITH MY DAILY REPORT. UH, REGARDING THE HUMANS I CALLED YOU ABOUT EARLIER."

"Did you fight them?" A low, stern voice asked.

"UH, DID I FIGHT THEM?...." Papyrus stood nervously. "Y-YES! OF COURSE I DID! I FOUGHT THEM VALIANTLY!"

"Did you capture them?" The voice asked again.

"W-W-WELL... NO." The skeleton admitted. "I TRIED VERY HARD, UNDYNE, BUT IN THE END, I FAILED."

"Ugh," Undyne groaned. "I'm gonna have to do this myself, aren't I?"

"BUT UNDYNE! YOU DON'T H-HAVE TO DESTROY THEM, YOU SEE... YOU SEE..." Papyrus walked towards the guard, trying to convince her, but a glare towards him was enough.

"... I UNDERSTAND." The skeleton sighed. "I'LL HELP YOU IN ANY WAY I CAN." 

And with that word, he left back towards Snowdin.

The group stood in complete silence for a long moment as still as statues, perhaps even more still than their fight with Doggo. Until suddenly, there was the sound of grass moving.

Undyne turned towards them suddenly, with a wave of an arm, a spear materialised in her hand before she threw it at them.

Everyone stood in shocked silence where they stood, the spear Undyne threw pinning Angela's tutu onto the ground.

Chase snapped out of the shock, grabbed hold of the spear and yanked it off Angela's tutu before throwing it aside and shoving her forward. "Run!" He yelled as he grabbed hold of both Frisk and Ryan and sprinted the opposite direction towards the large waterfall.

Ethan was next to snap out of it, grabbing hold of Sophie and Hannah before shoving Angela forward. "Go!" He yelled as they sprinted out of the grass and towards the waterfall. Pushing Hannah and Sophie in front, Ethan grabbed Angela, who was frozen in fear and they ran into the river.

"In the cave!" Chase yelled before pulling Frisk and Ryan into the cave behind the waterfall with him, with Sophie and Hannah following suit. Angela finally snapped out of the shock as she and Ethan dived into the cave right before Undyne could see them go.

"Seriously, that tutu was _way_ too easy to see in that grass." Behind the sound of the roaring waterfall, the group could pick up the voice of Undyne muttering to herself. "At least I now know one of them has a tutu." She grumbled.

"I swore I saw something, behind that rushing water...."

The group stood in complete silence, before Chase carefully peeked his head out from the waterfall to check of the royal guard was gone. Thankfully, the monster was nowhere to be found.

"She's gone." Chase announced, before slumping down on the floor in exhaustion.

Angela collapsed into the floor. "I... I... Almost.... I..." She stammered, tears streaming down her face.

"Oh god, oh god, don't cry, oh god, I don't know how to deal with girls crying, oh god." Ethan panicked, trying to calm a crying Angela down. "You're okay, we're okay, everybody's okay, we're not dead yet, please don't cry, oh god."

"Did I hurt you pulling you just now? Oh god, I'm sorry, don't cry please, are you hurt? Sorry, sorry, oh god, sorry, don't cry, please don't cry."

"Will you _please_ stop saying oh god?" Chase got up and knocked Ethan on the head. "No offense Ethan, you suck at calming girls down."

"Look, Angela, we're all okay. You're okay, everyone's okay." Chase knelt down beside Angela, who was almost brawling at the point. "Let's wash your face a bit, and we'll check if you got speared anywhere else other than your tutu.

"I... I can't..." Angela chocked back a sob. "Can't... Crying..."

"Right, that's why we're gonna have to wash your face." Chase got up and pulled Angela up too before leading her the the face of the waterfall. Angela cupped a bit of water and splashed it on her face, calming her down a bit. 

"Okay," She hiccuped, before taking a deep breath to calm down. "I'm okay now."

"Alright, mark that as the fourth near death experience this group has." Ryan announced. "We have Sophie almost get killed by Flowey and almost fell to her death, Ethan almost get hacked to pieces by Doggo, and the newly added Angela almost turning into a skewed kebab! Who's next in the near death experience wheel? Frisk? Hannah? Chase? Me? Who knows?"

"Not the time for sarcasm Ryan." Hannah sighed. "I'm pretty sure I heard Undyne say _"At least I now know one of them has a tutu."_ so, I'm pretty sure she memorised how Angela looks."

"Then the solution is simple." Angela said as she pulled her tutu off.

"Woah there! No need to strip-" Ethan didn't get to finish his sentence, because he got hit with a facefull of ballet tutu.

"FINISH THAT SENTENCE, AND YOU'LL BE DONE FOR." Angela yelled, now standing only in her one-piece gymnastic uniform that she usually wears under her tutu.

"But I wasn't-"

"Alright, okay, show's over everyone, we no longer have a human wearing a tutu with us, and we have learned the lesson to never wear ballet tutus in tall grass unless you want to get speared." Chase interrupted Ethan mid-sentence. "If everyone understands that, it's time to get going."

They all ducked and got out of the secret cave behind the waterfall, and waded out of the river. 

"This is not gonna be a fun journey." Hannah sighed.

"We better be getting out alive, cause I'd love to come back and fetch my tutu." Angela grumbled. After seeing her wearing it for two days straight, it was odd to see the lack of her tutu.

"Guys," Ethan said.

"What?"

"Remember that echo flower down the waterfall?"

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked.

"Be really quiet."

Over the sound of the roaring waterfall and falling rocks, the echo flower growing on the cliff side down below had picked up a voice.

_"I swore I saw something, behind that rushing water...."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Welcome to the Waterfall ark! I was looking forward to writing this particular chapter. Things are starting to get serious....


	16. Waterfall

Ryan had begun regretting the choice of following Ethan and the others to Mount Ebott right about at their first meeting of Papyrus. But at the moment, just after Angela almost became a skewed kebab prepared by Undyne, he had regretted the decision completely.

He had to admit, as nice and funny Papyrus was, Ryan didn't like the skeleton a whole lot. Being a loud person was one thing, being as loud as Papyrus was a whole new thing. And if there's anything Ryan learned from the trip underground, it's that he doesn't like any of the yelling. And the stomping, for that matter. It reminds him of stuff he'd rather not remember.

But all that didn't matter at the moment. With Snowdin Forest behind them, their main concern shifted from Papyrus to Undyne, which wasn't something Ryan was looking forward to. At least Papyrus didn't have an intent to outright murder the group. Undyne, on the other hand, almost killed Angela in their first minute of meeting each other.

It wasn't long after the group had finished their first puzzle in Waterfall, which involved building bridges out of flower seeds, when the phone rang. Chase fumbled around for the phone and answered it.

 _"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS!"_ Papyrus's voice blared from the speaker, and Chase had to pull the phone away from his ear to prevent going deaf.

"Wait, we didn't give him our number, did we?" Hannah pointed out.

"Papyrus?" Chase spoke to the phone, careful to keep the speaker far, far away from his ears. "How did you get our number? Just curious."

 _"HOW DID I GET THIS NUMBER?..."_ Papyrus repeated the question.

"Yeah," Chase pulled the phone a bit further from him.

 _"IT WAS EASY! I JUST DIALED EVERY NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL I GOT YOURS!!!!"_ The skeleton explained. Ryan had to stop himself from choking on his own spit suppressing his laughter.

_"SO…. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS WEARING? I'M… ASKING FOR A FRIEND. SHE THOUGHT SHE SAW ONE OF YOU WEARING A TUTU,"_

Ryan felt a chilly sensation on his skin, like there was a gust of cold air in the caverns. But he was wearing a sweater and they were no longer in Snowdin, and it seemed like everyone else felt it too.

 _"IS THAT TRUE? IS ONE OF YOU WEARING A DUSTY TUTU?"_ Papyrus's question echoes through the caves.

"Y… yeah," Chase replied, obviously trying to stop whatever emotion he's feeling at the moment from betraying him. "Someone's wearing a tutu alright,"

_"SO ONE OF YOU ARE WEARING A TUTU… GOT IT! YOU'RE MY FRIENDS, SO I TRUST YOU 100 PERCENT! HAVE A NICE DAY!!"_

Papyrus hung up.

"So, uh." Ethan cleared his throat. "How screwed are we?"

"Very, let's get going!" Chase didn't even leave time for the group to have a collective panic attack, dragging everyone to the next opening in sight before someone could break down crying.

The next room was dark, so dark that the only thing stopping the group from falling and tripping over each other were the dim glow of the echo flowers and the faint sparkles of what was probably crystals on the cavern ceiling.

Ryan leaned close to the echo flower nearest to him.

 _"A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky. If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true."_ It whispered.

_"Now, all we have are these sparkling stones on the ceiling…"_

Ryan saw Chase lean close to another one nearby, he followed suit.

_"Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The king will prove that,"_

"I don't wanna know how he'll prove that," Chase grumbled, and Ryan agreed wordlessly. Even if they get out of Waterfall without getting killed by Undyne, there's still the king of the monsters to deal with.

Ryan Heard more voices behind him. Turning around, he saw Angela standing beside a particularly loud flower.

 _"C'mon sis! Make a wish!"_ The voice of a young kid echoed throughout the cave. Beside it, another flower picked up where the first left off. _"I wish my sister and I will see the real stars someday…"_

The group felt around the dark cave for a bit longer, trying to find the exit despite the lack of proper lighting. Oddly enough, there wasn't any other opening other than the one they came through.

"Huh, is this a dead end?" Chase asked no one in particular. Ryan couldn't really answer that, considering the fog forming on his glasses throughout the entire trip in Waterfall so far left him twice as blind as usual.

"But there isn't anywhere else to go, right?" Hannah pointed out.

“Give me a sec,” Ethan said confidentiality while fumbling around with a random telescope standing near the flowers. He took a few steps back, before charging straight into the far end of the cavern and pushing against the wall hard.

Much to everyone’ surprise, the wall crumbled down, revealing a new pathway out the room.

“How did you-?” Angela began to ask, before Ethan cut her off. “The telescope had a hint in it,”

“A what?”

“A hint, don't question it, lets go,”

The team walked through the opening that Ethan somehow pushed open and found themselves on a wooden dock above water. Signs carved onto the cavern walls stood at one side.

“The War of humans and monsters,” Frisk walked up to the walls and read. “Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear. Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the soul of nearly every monster… just to equal the power of a single human soul.”

“Are we that strong?” Sophie asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Dunno,”

“But humans have one weakness,” Frisk read off the next sign. “Ironically, it is the strength of their soul. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death. If a monster defeats a human, it can take its soul,”

Oh, great. More chills up Ryan’s spine, why not?

“A monster with a human soul… a horrible beast with unfathomable power.” Frisk finished reading.

Ryan noticed there was another sign that Frisk didn't read, but upon closer inspection (and a lot of squinting), it turned out it wasn't words after all, but a drawing of… something. Whatever it is, Ryan can't make it out, and he doesn't really want to.

The way forward wasn't the most obvious, but still better than the previous room. To the right of the dock, pass a void of dark river water, was another dock, and a small, wooden bridge so narrow the group had to walk on it in a single file (how Ryan didn't fall off the bridge with his eyesight at the moment, no one knows).

By the time everyone reached the opposite side, something felt very, very wrong.

It felt wrong because 1. There was nothing in sight other than a long wooden dock, 2. The stone pillars to the left of the group were suspiciously shadowy and likely to be hiding an ambush, and most of all 3. The dramatic lighting at the place obviously is ringing the bells of “something is horribly wrong”.

Of course Ryan didn't have the time to warn everyone about the dreading feeling that someone has gave the Near Death Experience Wheel a spin again, because after taking three steps, _CRACK!_

The wood a few inches away from the group’s feet was pierced by a glowing spear.

Ryan was already sprinting by the time his brain had registered the fact that the hulking shadow looming over them behind a stone pillar was Undyne. No one even bothered to yell “Run!” anymore, there was a scream and a yelp here or there, someone stumbled a couple of times, but everything was being blurred together and it didn't occur to Ryan that he was on the floor until someone yanked him down and pulled him close.

It was only then Ryan realised the person holding him was Angela, they were in a sea of tall grass again, and everyone was staying as silent as possible while the sound of metallic clanking got louder by the moment.

Then it stopped.

There was a sound of rustling grass, as if something, or someone, was lifted up to the air, and Ryan’s stomach turned cold.

He forced himself to look up, to see what was happening, and what he saw was Undyne holding a little yellow monster by the face. The monster, probably lacking any nerves on his face judging by the painless reaction he has, looked so happy like he was about to burst in an explosion of excitement.

Undyne put Monster Kid down back into the grass, and stomped off.

Ryan realized he was practically clinging onto Angela like a koala bear by the time Undyne’s metallic footsteps faded into nothing. As quiet as humanly possible, the group crawled out of the sea of tall grass, the opposite direction Undyne went.

Monster Kid came running out of the grass, almost giving Ryan a heart attack. His tail was wagging like a puppy who just found a stick to play fetch with, and the group took a few steps back to avoid being hit by it.

“Yo… did you see that!?” he exclaimed. “Undyne just… TOUCHED ME! I'm never washing my face ever again!”

“Man, you guys were lucky too!” MK continued. “I saw you guys just now, back at the big waterfall. Was she looking for you guys? That's so cool!”

“Define lucky,” Ethan muttered under his breath. Ryan turned to see everyone else trying their best to pull a straight face.

“C’mon! Lets watch her beat up some bad guys!”

Monster Kid began running off, before tripping and falling flat on his face. But he was already back on his feet and sprinting away before anyone could offer him help.

Ryan groaned and decided to sacrifice his decency in exchange for lying on the floor, in a fetal position. Hey, maybe break down crying, why not? Unfortunately, the rest of the group had other ideas.

“This is stupid, I want to go home, and I am so close to losing it right now.” Ryan heard Chase grumble before he felt a pair of arms pulling him back to his feet. Guess having a mental breakdown will have to wait.

“Look, all of us probably need the time to cry out the fears of--” Chase gestures his hand around everything. “--whatever this is, but this is not the time. Not when Miss Captain of the Royal Guard almost murdered the seven of us in one go. We gotta go, now.”

Ryan watched as everyone got themselves together, and he frowned. How does everyone look so fine? Like nothing is wrong at all?

It doesn't matter, time is precious, and maybe if he survives he can make the time to cry it all out later. Ryan forced his legs to stand properly, and using whatever strength he still had, followed everyone else to the next place


	17. Memory

"Geez, how long has that cheese been in there?"

Part of the group observed a crystalized piece of cheese stuck onto a table with a mix of amusement and disgust. Another part of the group piled onto each other leaning on a nearby echo flower trying to hear what it had to say. 

"There's literally nothing, I hear nothing." Angela complained.

"Shush! I hear something!" Ethan shoved Angela away.

"Faint squeaking isn't something!"

Frisk stared dumbly at the glowing light this time, wondering what does it actually do other than make Chara sprout some random words neither of them really understand. Then they shrugged before attempting to hold the warm glow in the palms of their hands. Of course, it doesn't work.

_"Knowing the mouse might one day extract the cheese from the mystical crystal... it fills you with determination."_

"What does determination even mean?" Frisk asked. 

Chara shrugged. _"Dunno, something like stubborn?"_

"You say it all the time, how do you don't know what it means?"

_"Eh, I kinda get it, but I dunno how to explain it,"_

Frisk tried to elbow them, but of course you can't really expect to elbow a ghost, so their arm just went right through them. "Dunno this, dunno that,"

Chara stuck their tongue out.

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"So? Don't you have any wishes to make?"_

_"Hmmm, just one, but it's kind of stupid."_

Echo flowers were all over the place as the group continued walking. It would've been a very scenetic moment, if not because of uh, Angela's ungraceful hobbling along in her painful ballet shoes. With a loud yelp, she tripped over herself and fell flat on the floor.

"Alright, that's it, I'm not wearing these anymore." She grumbled while pulling off the shoes to massage her sore feet. 

"Wow, that's a lot of blisters," Ryan noted. It was amazing how Angela managed to walk this far with the conditions of her shoes, considering both of her feet were completely red with blisters.

"Wait, maybe my healing thingy can help," Hannah offered. So far, Hannah's magical healing powers were still a mystery. Though it was doing rather well for a quick patch-up after every monster encounter, the limits were still not obvious.

Hannah grabbed hold on one of Angela's feet while Angela bit back the urge to swear out loud. One awkward moment later, no green glowing, no magic healing, the blisters still hurt like a truck.

"Huh," Hannah muttered. "Does it only work for magic attacks and stuff?"

"We're literally under a mountain full of monsters," Angela complained. "How much more magical does it need to be?"

Hannah didn't really have the time to answer the question, cause almost instantly after that the phone started ringing.

_"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS!!! REMEMBER WHEN I ASKED YOU ABOUT CLOTHES?"_

"Yeah?" Chase answered. "What about it?"

_"WELL, THE FRIEND WHO WANTED TO KNOW... HER OPINION ON YOU GUYS IS VERY...MURDERY."_

"Who wouldn't have guessed," Ethan muttered.

_"WELL, WORRY NOT DEAR HUMANS! PAPYRUS WOULD NEVER BETRAY YOU! I AM NOT A CRUEL PERSON. I STRIVE TO BE COMFORTING AND PLEASANT. PAPYRUS! HE SMELLS OF THE MOON!"_

"That's nice, Papyrus." Chase winced, apparently having forgotten the volume of the skeleton judging by his need to pull the phone further from him again. "Now, about the betrayal thing?"

_"SO, BECAUSE OF MY INHERENT GOODNESS... I TOLD HER NONE OF YOU WERE WEARING A TUTU! EVEN THOUGH YOU GUYS TOLD ME YOU WERE. INSTEAD, I MADE SOMETHING UP."_

"Made what up?" 

_"I TOLD HER ONE OF YOU WERE WEARING BALLET SHOES."_

Half the group facepalmed while the other half actively kept their groans to a silent scream.

_"IT PAINED ME TO TELL SUCH A BOLDFACED LIE... I KNEW NONE OF YOU WOULD EVER WEAR BALLET SHOES, BUT THE SAFETY OF THE SEVEN OF YOU IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN FASHION. DANG! I JUST WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE..."_

Papyrus hung up just in time to miss the entire group sigh in exasperation.

"I was literally wearing a ballet tutu..." Angela massaged her forehead. "HOW DOES HE NOT SEE MY SHOES?!"

"Are you gonna leave your shoes behind now?" Ethan snorted. "Cause if this is gonna go on you might as well take off your- OUCH!!" Angela whacked him on the head with her dirty ballet shoes.

"Didn't want to wear them any longer anyways." Angela grumbled as she looked around the place for anywhere to hide the shoes. Marching off to the nearest spot of tall grass, she buried her shoes deep in it before returning to the group. "Let's go."

The echo flowers continued their conversation.

_"Don't say that! Come on, I promise I won't laugh."_

_"....."_

On a nearby wall was a sign like the ones they saw earlier. 

"The power to take their souls. This is the power that humans feared." Frisk read.

"Yeah, I can see that," Chase sighed.

"... Is Asgore really gonna take our souls?" Sophie tugged on the corner of her shirt nervously.

No one answered.

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Si Fa Si Fa So Fa So Mi Re Re,"_ Angela hummed while walking along. The group had just encountered Shyren, and her song was stuck in Angela's head.

"Stop singing, my ears aren't meant for this torture." Ethan complained while covering his ears to prove his point.

Angela kicked his foot, before cursing under her breath upon remembering the hard way that her feet were still covered in blisters.

"The northern room hides a great treasure." Frisk's voice echoed down the caverns. The group turned to face the path branching off from the direction they were heading.

At the northern room was a piano and a sign carved into the wall. "A haunting song echoes down the corridor, won't you play along?" (Hey, that rhymes!)

"What song?" Ethan tilted his head. "I hear nothing,"

It was true, there wasn't any music, only the distant sound of rushing water. Frisk was on the piano nevertheless, playing a shaky tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Of course, no secret opening revealed itself, because Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is not a haunting song. The group shrugged and backtracked.

"I miss the piano at home," Sophie sighed.

More signs lined the cavern walls, obviously a continuation of the last few signs in Waterfall.

"This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster's soul. When a monster dies, its soul disappears, and an incredible power would be needed to take the soul of a living monster."

"There is only one exception. The soul of a special species of monster called a Boss Monster. A Boss Monster's soul is strong enough to persist after death... if only for a few moments. A human could absorb this soul, but this has never happened. And now it never will."

"Wow, that is dark," Ethan commented.

"You think Asgore is gonna be a Boss Monster?" Ryan attempted to wipe his glasses clean for the hundredth time this trip.

"You know, with the luck we have right now, why not?" Chase sighed as the group continued forward.

A statue stood sadly at the left of the cavern. Water dripped down steadily from the ceiling above it like rain, soaking the poor stone figure. The statue itself had horns, with its hands cupped together and its face looking down at them. The dripping water collected in the cupped hands.

Ethan had a sense of deja vu.

There was a bucket full of umbrellas nearby. Beside it was a sign.

_"Please take one."_

"Wait," Frisk said while grabbing an umbrella and running back to the statue. "I have an idea,"

They opened the umbrella before putting it in the cupped hands of the statue. A song starts playing.

"Wait, what?" Angela stared at the statue, bewildered.

Ryan laid onto the ground to peek at the statue's base. "There's a music box in there!"

"Is this song supposed to be haunting?" Hannah sighed. "It sounds so calming,"

"Nah, it kinda sounds a bit sad to me?" Chase raised an eyebrow.

Frisk turned to see Chara staring wordlessly at the statue.

"Chara?" They waved a hand in front of them.

Chara was lost in thought.

"We can solve the piano puzzle now!" Sophie cheered, running back to the piano a short walk away, with the rest of the group following.

_"Wait, how does it go again?"_

_"Hey, don't push me off!"_

_"Be quiet! I can't hear the song!"_

_"Re La So Re..."_

_"Wait wait, watch this!"_

Eventually, somewhere between the fighting and laughing and playing, someone must've got the song right, because the wall beside the piano crumbled into a pathway.

"Whoo! It worked!" Ethan cheered running into the new room, everyone else closely behind. 

The only notable thing in the room was a half-transparent red orb sitting on top of a small stone pillar. A sign on the pillar read "Legendary Artifact".

_"Bark bark!"_

Ethan whipped his head around. "What the heck was that?!"

A little blur of white darted past everyone, dodged Frisk's attempt to jump on it and snagged the artifact off the pillar. It sat there on the pillar wagging its tail.

"Oh my god, it's that dog again," Chase stood at the spot, too confused to react properly.

"Toby? Toby dog, c'mere boy!" Sophie walked slowly to the little dog, trying to coax it to her.

The dog (Toby?) barked enthusiastically while wagging its tail. Then, before anyone else could react, leapt off the pillar, danced past Frisk's arms yet again, and sprinted off with the artifact.

No one really did anything for the next few moments, just staring at each other dumbfounded.

"You know what? I don't think it would be a stretch to say that was Toby." Ethan binked wearily.

~~•~--•--~•~~

"It's raining!" Sophie's eyes widened in delight as the group walked past the umbrella bucket. Water from the ceiling dripped down to the floor like rain, puddles forming on the floor reflecting the silhouettes of everyone walking by.

"Are we underneath an underground lake?" Ryan looked up to the ceiling, safely dry under his umbrella. 

Frisk ran around the place, jumping into every puddle they could find while giggling as they got covered head to toe in water.

"Frisk, you're getting soaked," Angela sighed while dodging the third splash of water Frisk sent at her. Then, faster than she could react, Frisk kicked a pool of water at her.

"Frisk!" Angela groaned while attempting to shake the water off her. _SPLASH!_ The backside of Angela was drenched too.

Angela turned to see Ethan grinning like a maniac, Sophie standing behind him giggling.

Oh, that's it. Common sense forgotten, Angela kicked a puddle in the direction of the two. 

Ethan stood there, a bit shocked that Miss Angela Amaya Hyde, no fun girl extrodinare was having a rare moment of funtime. Drenched and surprised, he bursted into laughter. "Sophie." He leaned close to the youngest girl. "Hear me out, this is all out war."

Angela's face dropped. "Oh nonononoNONO-" she fled shrieking as the two chased after her, umbrella forgotten and abandoned. "SAVE MEEEEEE!"

"C'mon Angela," Chase sighed. "I thought you're more mature than thi-" His face was hit by a splash of rainwater.

Frisk laughed uncontrollably as Chase grimaced over his wet polo shirt and cowboy hat. Then, as fast as ever, his face flashed a grin as he sent a splash to Frisk themselves.

Hannah laughed, drenched with water as well. Somewhere behind Chase, Ryan was already joining Ethan and the others in soaking Angela to the core. 

It seemed like everyone had forgotten they still had a long way to go. Is he the only one who has to remember what's happening next? How slim are the chances of their survival?

He didn't get to continue on his thoughts, because he was drenched by yet another splash of water. Angela grinned mischievously as Ethan whooped and ran over to give her a high-five.

"Hey, turn that frown upside-down," Ethan laughed. "Wait, that was really corny, but you know what I mean. Lighten up man!"

 _Right._ Chase thought. _Fun first, worries later._ He broke into a grin and ran over to join everyone in the fun. Nearby, the echo flowers would repeat the laughters of children playing and laughing for a long, long time.

~~•~--•--~•~~

"The castle was so pretty," Sophie sighed as they continued walking along.

"Well, we're going there, so we'll see it again soon enough," Angela grimaced at the thought of getting to the castle. That was not something she looked forward to.

"Frisk, you don't wanna read the signs?" Hannah asked.

Frisk was busy catching invisible bugs to bother. "Wait a minute!"

"The serene sound of a distant music box... It feels you with determination."

"The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us. They attacked suddenly, and without mercy." Frisk ran back to the first sign to read off it.

"In the end, it could hardly be called a war. United, the humans were too powerful, and us monsters, too weak. Not a single soul was taken, and countless monsters were turned to dust."

"I still can't believe monsters are real," Ryan sighed. "How did all of this happen?"

They continued walking. In front of them was a large, open cavern. A large wooden platform splitting into many directions stood high from the cavern ground.

Something felt wrong again, Angela's stomach turned cold. The place they're at in the moment was almost identical to the one earlier where they were chased by Undyne: dark, dramatic lighting, a wooden platform good for spear practice, and nothing in sight. Right below the platform the group was standing on was another platform, almost the same as the one on top.

Everyone must've noticed the similarities to, because all of a sudden everyone tensed up. 

"Ethan, Angela, guard us from the back. I'm taking the front. No more arguments until we get out of this place." Chase ordered. "On a count of three, we're running as fast as we can across this bridge unless we want Miss Captain Undyne to ambush us again."

Everyone did as they were told. Even Ethan was in no mood to joke around, glancing nervously for any signs of someone following them.

"One..."

Ethan looked down, and his face turned pale.

"Two..."

Angela freezed up, leaning behind Ethan to see what he's seeing. Her stomach turned cold.

"Thr-"

The small gap between Angela and Ethan and the group glowed bright blue. Everyone turned to face it in alarm.

_CRACK!_

Glowing blue spears shot through the gap, making everyone jump back in alarm. Somewhere below the bridge, metal reflected the bright light, the armour of the royal guard.

"SCATTER!"

"Get up!" Ethan yelled, grabbing hold of Angela as they sprinted across the platform. 

It was a maze. There were dead ends everywhere, spears shot through the floor with each step they took. Angela couldn't make anything out, she caught a glimpse of Chase grabbing Sophie and Frisk by the hand... Hannah pulling Ryan out of the way of a spear... Flashes of bright blue piercing through the ground they stood... No one knew where they were, where to go or where to hide. All she could feel was the tightness in her lungs, the terror in her mind and the shooting pain of her legs.

Then, when Angela finally saw everyone else in front of her, safe and in a group, she heard a scream.

Ethan collapsed to the floor, part of his leg bleeding from where a spear shot him.

"Ethan!" Angela shrieked, sprinting back to him. He pushed himself up, then dropped to the floor again.

"Can't stand..." she heard him squeak.

Spears shot up around them.

"Angela!" Someone behind them yelled.

Something sharp grazed Angela's arm. Red started trickling down.

If they don't move now, they'll be the first victims.

"... Go," Ethan whispered. Not yell, not scream, whisper. Quiet, terrified, too scared, too hurt to move.

"Angela! Ethan!" Someone, Chase, yelled. He got up, trying to run to them. Spears shot up, threatening to skewer him if he came any closer.

"Ethan! Get up, please!" Sophie was close to tears.

"Get up Ethan. GET UP!" Angela yelled, trying to pull him up. His legs buckled, and they fell onto the floor again.

"Angela!" Ryan's voice shook. "Ethan can't stand!"

"Then what do you want me to do?! I can't carry him!" Angela screamed, frustrated.

No one answered, Angela realised the answer herself. Her blood turned cold.

"Go!" Ethan yelled, scaring Angela out of her shock.

"Angela, please!" Hannah yelled, tears streaming down her face.

Suddenly, something clicked in Angela. Something strong and angry and true.

No one will be sacrificed. Not on her watch.

"My god, GO! Please, please just go!" Ethan shoved her away.

"No," She stammered.

"WHAT?!"

"NO!" Angela screamed, grabbing Ethan by both arms and dragging him through the spears.

"What do you mean "no"?! What are you thinking?!" Ethan yelled, thrashing around stubbornly. Fortunately for Angela, she's stronger than she looks.

"Why are all of you such corny idiots?!" Angela's grip on him grew stronger. "I'm not leaving anyone behind!"

"You're going to die, stupid! Just go!"

"No!" a spear almost impaled Angela. She stumbled, then took a shaky breath before continuing to pull Ethan and herself to safety.

"Ryan!" Chase yelled. Angela turned to see Ryan stumble and run toward them. A spear almost impaled his foot as he tripped and fell, but in the right moment he scrambled up and joined Angela.

"Hurry up!" Ryan yelled. "We don't have time!"

"Why are you guys so stubborn?!" Ethan screamed. "You'll get hurt!"

"And you'll die!" Something warm is trailing down Angela's cheeks. It's either blood or tears. Is she crying? It doesn't matter.

It probably only took 20 seconds to drag Ethan to safety with the help of Ryan, but to Angela it might as well be 20 years. Hannah grabbed hold of Ethan's injured leg, finally stopping the bleeding.

The spears stopped.

Angela wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, maybe, just maybe even pull Ethan into a hug. But of course, there was no time for that.

Undyne's hulking figure stood on the platform, cornering the group.

Before anyone could scream, a line of blue cutted the group off the rest of the platform. Spears broke the platform in half, and a sense of familiar weightlessness followed as they fell...

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Mommy? Where are we going?"_

_"..."_

_"Mommy?"_

_"Look, Sophia. Stay right here, alright? I need to... go to work. I'll be back in ten minutes. Whatever you do, don't leave."_

_"Okay, mommy."_

_".... Poor girl... someone must've abandoned her."_

_"Who even does such a thing? That's just cruel."_

_"Thank goddess someone called the police, she must've been here for hours now..."_

_"Miss? Where's mommy?"_

_"..."_

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Suspect's caught with the weapon. What about the victim? Her name's Elizabeth, right?"_

_"Elizabeth Reynolds. She... just passed. Too much blood loss. Her son was there at the scene too..."_

_"... Is the kid okay?"_

_"No harm done, just in shock. Poor kid doesn't have a dad either."_

_"... call the social services, I'll try talking to him. God, that poor kid..."_

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Come on sweetie, come down. I'm not gonna hurt you, I promise."_

_"Over my dead body, go away!"_

_"Clinging onto a tree won't do much dear. Come on, you might get hurt."_

_"Go way go away go away!"_

_"Sweetie, we aren't gonna bring you to your parents, we're just bringing you to the clinic for a checkup, and get you some lunch. You look like you haven't eaten in days dear."_

_"... You're not taking me to my parents?"_

_"I promise, dearie. They won't hurt you anymore."_

_"..."_

_"There we go sweetie, what's your name?"_

_"... Angela."_

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Oh god, that car was totally wrecked."_

_"Call an ambulance!"_

_"There's someone in there!"_

_"Help me please! Mama and papa won't wake up!"_

_"Oh god, oh god, don't worry sweetheart, mama and papa will be alright."_

_"Everything hurts..."_

_"It's alright sweetheart. The ambulance is coming, it'll be aright. What's your name?"_

_"Hannah."_

_"Hannah, sweetheart, it'll be alright, okay?"_

_"Mama? Papa?"_

_"..."_

_"... Mama and papa's not breathing! please help... MAMA! PAPA!"_

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"Chase, there's someone outside who wants to see you."_

_"Chase Joseph Nicholson? Son of Alexander Nicholson?"_

_"That's me."_

_"..."_

_"... yeah?"_

_"Son, just this morning... there was an armed robbery a few streets away... Your father..."_

~~•~--•--~•~~

_"It sounds like it came from over here..."_

_"Oh! You've fallen down, haven't you..."_

_"Are you okay? Here, get up..."_

_"..."_

_"Chara, huh?"_

_"That's a nice name."_

_"My name is..."_

_Water._ That was Angela's first thought.

_Water. Can't breathe._

_Can't breathe._

Angela spluttered and choked, coughing up whatever was in her lungs a few seconds ago. It looked like everyone else had the same unsatisfying experience of choking on water as well. 

"Oh god, I just had the worst nightmare..." Ethan spat out the last of the water in his mouth. 

"Ditto," Chase rubbed his eyes. Was he crying? "Is everyone alright?"

Angela did a headcount. Sophie, Ethan, her, Hannah, Chase, Frisk... wait.

"Someone's missing." Angela shot up from her sitting position, looking around frantically.

"What?"

"Ryan!" Ethan jumped up and started yelling. "Ryan oh my god where is he?!"

Finally snapping back into reality, everyone got up in a panic and started looking around.

The group fell into what seems like a dumping ground for the monsters. If Angela wasn't busy searching for Ryan, she might've took the opportunity to scream in disgust. No golden flowers to soften their fall this time, the dirty water almost drowned them after cushioning their fall.

Something heavy hit Angela's foot, and she looked down as her stomach turned cold processing what she was looking at.

Ryan was unconscious underneath the water.


End file.
